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ARTIST—-BIOGRAPHIES. 


PT STON. 





BOSTON: 
HOUGHTON, OSGOQD AND COMPANY. 
The Biversive [ress, Cambridge. 


1879. 


CopyRIGHT, 1878. 
By HOUGHTON, OSGOOD & CO. 


All rights reserved. 


ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 
CAMBRIDGE, 


THE GETTY CENTES 
LIBRARY 


PREFACE. 


WASHINGTON ALLSTON was one of the highest prod- 
ucts of American civilization and European culture 
combined, and possessed the full affluence of literary 
genius, artistic knowledge, refinement, purity, and re- 
ligion as few other men of the Western World ever 
have. He was the intimate friend of Sumner and 
Irving, Coleridge and Wordsworth, Thorwaldsen and 
West, Longfellow and Channing, and many others of 
the foremost men of his age; and on all occasions 
proved himself worthy of their companionship, and 
even of their love. 

Some materials for this biography were obtained 
from the memoirs of Leslie, Morse, Collins, Harding, 
Sumner, and other contemporaries of the artist; and 
from the writings of Tuckerman, Ware, and Dunlap. 
I have also examined nearly all the English memoirs 
and miscellanies relating to the first quarter of the 
nineteenth century, finding here and there chance allu- 
sions or original characterizations of my subject. But 
a large part of the facts herein set forth have been col- 


Vig PREFACE. 


lected from the friends of Allston; and in this connec- 
tion I would hereby render my thanks to Mr. Richard 
H. Dana, Jr., and other members of the Dana family, 
and also to Messrs. Jonathan Mason, George S. Hil- 
lard, Henry W. Longfellow, Robert C. Winthrop, 
Robert C. Waterston, and other New-England gen- 
tlemen who have given me facts about Allston’s life. 
I would also gratefully acknowledge similar assistance 
from Messrs. Daniel Ravenel and S. P. Ravenel 
of Charleston, S. C.; the Rev. Benjamin Allston, of 
Georgetown, S. C.; Captain Joseph Blyth Allston, of 
Baltimore ; and other members of the Allston family. 

I have preferred to give as much of the autobio- 
graphical character as possible to this sketch, by 
using Allston’s own words on all available occasions, 
and supplementing them with the language of Morse, 
Leslie, Collins, Sumner, Irving, Lowell, Felton, and 
Dana. In this way we may gain a clear and living 
idea of the great artist and his surroundings, as he 
appeared to his contemporaries and associates, and 
may, perchance, comprehend the secret of his fas- 


Cination. 
M. F. SWEETSER. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER I. 
PAGE 
Waccamaw. — The Allstons. — Childhood of the Master. — New- 
port. — Channing and Dana. — Harvard College. — Malbone. 
— Return to South Carolina. — Youth’s Joys . : : ye 


CHAPTER. IL. 


Studies in London. — West, Fuseli, and Northcote. — With Van- 
derlyn at Paris. — Switzerland and the Italian Lakes. — Rome. 
— Thorwaldsen and the Humboldts. — Irving and Coleridge. — 
*“The American Titian.’? — Return to America. — Marriage to 
Miss Channing . : ° ‘ ; : : . , - 3 


CHAPTER fii. 


Return to London. — Collins, Leslie, and Morse — Sir George 
Beaumont. — West. — Coleridge and Southey. — Death of Mrs. 
Allston. — Paris. — Lord Egremont. — Irving. — Homeward 


Bound . : : ; 3 : : : : ; . 2 es 


CHAPTER. IV. 


The Studio at Boston. — Chester Harding. — Academic Honors. — 
Horatio Greenough. — Washington Irving. — De Veaux. — 
Morse . ; ‘ " ° ; ‘ . ° . ° “ gz 


CHAPTER. V. 


A Group of Pictures. — The Valentine, Rosalie, Beatrice, Spala- 
tro, etc. — The ‘ Belshazzar’s Feast’ ; : ° ; . 109 


oi CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER (VL 


The Studio at Cambridgeport. — Lowell’s Pen-Sketch. — Mrs. 
Jameson. — The Exhibition. — Eminent Friends. — The 
Death of Allston : ; a : ‘ ane ‘ a eae 


CHAPTER ) Vit, 


Allston as an Author. — “‘ The Sylphs.” — ‘‘ The Two Painters.” 
— Minor Poems. — ‘ Monaldi.’”? — ‘‘ Lectures on Art.’??— 


Studio Aphorisms . : ‘ ° : . ik an 


CHAPTER VII. 


Personal Traits. — System of Color. — Versatility. — Italianism. — 


Slight Influence on American Art : : . 172 


Meio ON. 





CHAPTER: ) i 


Waccamaw. — The Allstons. — Childhood of the Master. — New- 
port.— Channing and Dana.— Harvard College. — Malbone. — 


Return to South Carolina. — Youth’s Joys. 


THE district of Waccamaw, in South Carolina, 
is a long strip of land, between the Waccamaw 
River and the Ocean, from three to six miles 
wide, and separated by Winyah Bay, on the south, 
from the Santee country. On this sequestered 
and sea-fronting peninsula, a century ago, several 
patrician families lived under an almost baro- 
nial végzme, with their broad plantations, their 
many vassals, and their generous hospitalities. 
Prominent among these were the Allstons, from 
whom arose one of the foremost of American 
artists. 

It is supposed that the Allstons came from the 
Norse settlements in Northumberland, and from 


8 ALLSTON. 


a baronet’s family. There is a town in that 
county by the name of Alston, and one in 
Norway called Alsten. Some people think that 
the American Allstons were descended from 
John Allston, who was banished from England’ 
about the year 1685, for complicity in the re- 
bellion of the Duke of Monmouth. 

William Allston of Brook Green was the nephew 
of Colonel William Allston, of Marion’s staff, 
who married the daughter of the heroic Rebecca 
Motte. The younger William had two children, 
Benjamin and Elizabeth, by his first wife ; and 
three by his second wife, Mary, WasHINGTON, 
and William Moore Allston. Benjamin was 
therefore Washington’s half-brother, and his son 
was Governor R. F. W. Allston, whose son Ben- 
jamin, a retired army officer, now resides in the 
Waccamaw region. Mr. Joseph B. Allston, of 
Baltimore, and late of the Confederate army, a 
gentleman famous for his ringing war-poetry, is 
another grand-nephew of our artist. 

Governor Joseph Allston, of South Carolina, 
who married Theodosia, the daughter of Aaron 
Burr, was the son of the painter’s great-uncle, 
Colonel William Allston ; and his brother, William 


THE ALLSTONS IN 1780. 9 


7 Algernon Allston, married Mary Allston, the sis- 
ter of Washington. The artist’s younger brother, 
William, studied at Princeton College, and set- 
tled in the North, where he married a Miss 
Rogers, by whom he had three children. 

William Allston had several estates in the 
Waccamaw region, and chose the Springfield 
plantation as Washington’s heritage, while Brook 
Green was allotted to Benjamin. In the year 
1780, before his son Washington had attained 
his second birthday, William died; and Mrs. 
Rachel Allston afterwards married Dr. Henry C. 
Flagg, of Rhode Island, an officer of the Conti- 
nental army. | 

We cannot better describe the Allston man- 
sions and their people, a century ago, than in 
the words of General Horry, one of Marion’s 
partisan officers: “ These three spirited charges, 
having cost us a great deal of rapid marching 
and fatigue, Marion said he would give us ‘a@ 
little rest.’ So he led us down into Waccamaw, 
where he knew we had some excellent friends ; 
among whom were the Hugers and Trapiers, and 
the Allstons; fine fellows! rich as Jews, and 


hearty as we could wish: indeed, the worthy 


1o ALLSTON. 


Captain, now Colonel, William Aliston, was one 
of Marion’s aids. These great people all re- 
ceived us as though we had been their brothers, 
threw open the gates of their elegant yards for 
our cavalry, hurried us up their princely steps ; 
and, notwithstanding our dirt and rags, ushered 
us into their grand saloons and dining-rooms, 
where the famous mahogany sideboards were 
quickly covered with pitchers of old amber-col- 
ored brandy, and sugar dishes of doudle refined, 
with honey, for drams and juleps. Our horses 
were up to the eyes in corn and sweet-scented 
fodder ; while, as to ourselves, nothing that air, 
land, or water could furnish was good enough 
for us. Fish, flesh, and fowl, all of the fattest 
and finest, and sweetly graced with the smiles of 
the great ladies, were spread before us as though 
we had been kings ; while Congress and Wash- 
ington went round in sparkling bumpers, from 
old demijohns that had not left the garret for 
many a year. ‘This was feasting indeed!” 

On the Brook Green domain, twenty-two miles 
above Georgetown, in the mansion-house of his 
family, Washington Allston was born, on the 
fifth of November, 1779. The house in which he 


DESIGNING IN INFANCY. II 


came into life has since been destroyed. From 
his earliest years he was distinguished by a 
nervous and active temperament, a quick mind, 
and an acute sensibility, conditions. peculiarly 
unfavorable to his development in the languid 
atmosphere of the Carolinas, and under the dull 
routine of a plantation-home. 

Allston has thus written of his early years, and 
of the first manifestations of his genius for com- 
position and landscape, and love for the marvel- 
lous and poetic : — 

“To go back as far as I can,—I remember 
that I used to draw before I left Carolina, at six 
years of age (by the way, no wxcommon thing), 
and still earlier, that my favorite amusement, 
much akin to it, was making little landscapes 
about the roots of an old tree in the country, — 
meagre enough, no doubt, — the only particulars 
of which I can call to mind were a cottage built 
of sticks, shaded by little trees, which were com- 
posed of the small suckers (I think so called), 
resembling miniature trees, which I gathered in 
the woods. Another employment was the con- 
verting the forked stalks of the wild ferns into 
little men and women, by winding about them 


¥2 ALLSTON. 


different colored yarn. ‘These were sometimes 
presented with pitchers made of the pomegranate 
flower. ‘These childish fancies were the straws 
by which, perhaps, an observer might then have 
guessed which way the current was setting for 
after life. And yet, after all, this love of imi- 
tation may be common to childhood. General 
imitation certainly is ; but.whether adherence to 
particular kinds may not indicate a permanent 
propensity, I leave to those who have studied 
the subject more than I have, to decide. 

“But even these delights would sometimes 
give way to a stronger love for the wild and mar- 
vellous. I delighted in being terrified by the 
tales of witches and hags, which the negroes 
used to tell me; and I well remember with what 
pleasure I recalled these feelings on my return to 
Carolina, especially on revisiting a gigantic wild 
grape-vine in the woods, which had been the 
favorite swing for one of these witches. 

“One of my favorite haunts when a child in 
Carolina was a forest spring, where I used to 
catch minnows, and, I dare say, with all the cal- 
lousness of a fisherman; at this moment I can 


see that spring, and the pleasant conjurer Mem- 


SENT TO NEWPORT. 13 


ory has brought again those little creatures before 
me; but how unlike to what they were! They 
seem to me like the spirits of the woods, which 
a flash from their little diamond eyes lights up 
afresh in all their gorgeous garniture of leaves 
and flowers.” 

When the boy had reached his seventh year 
the family physician advised that he should be 
sent to the North, in order that his nervous and 
high-strung organization might be recruited by 
a more bracing air than that of the Carolina 
lowlands. The education befitting the son of 
a Southern planter could hardly be obtained on 
a secluded estate like that of the Allstons, and 
the desire to place their heir in a situation favor- 
able to his intellectual culture was another reason 
why his parents resolved to send him away for a 
few years. In those days there was but one place 
for a Carolina lad to be educated in, and that 
was Newport, R. I., whither young Washington 
was sent. 

The excellent schools of Newport afforded fa- 
cilities for the proper education of the Southern 
children, many of whom were left here to be pre- 


pared for college. John C. Calhoun received 


14 ALLSTON. 


his elementary tuition here, before going to Yale 
College. James Hamilton was educated here, 
and afterwards reversed his Northern indoctrina- 
tion by forcing South Carolina into conflict with 
the United States, and advocating the Nullifica- 
tion Act, while he was governor. The Kinlocks of 
Charleston were summer visitors at Newport from 
1785 to 1800, and other Carolinians there were 
the Shubricks, Rutledges, Gists, and Hayneses. 
The Carolina colony at Newport flourished and 
increased until it was ruined by the fatal results 
of the Rutledge-Senter duel. 

The connection between Newport and Allston’s 
parish was always peculiarly intimate. An All- 
ston was born in Rhode Island, and appointed 
thence to West Point in 1820. At the reunion 
of the Sons of Newport, in 1859, there were 
seven old Rhode-Islanders present from George- 
town, S. C., the town nearest to the Allston 
estates. 

From 1785 to 1800 Newport was one of the 
most cultivated and wealthy communities of the 
United States, the chief naval station of the 
Republic, and hardly second to New York in 


commerce. The wealth acquired by maritime. 


NEWPORT IN 1785. 15 


trading had given opportunity for the development 
of numerous aristocratic families, with whom so- 
cial life and elegant hospitalities had been refined 
by the visits of distinguished foreigners and the 
frequent sojourns of the courtly officers of the 
French fleets, whose favorite rendezvous during 
the Revolutionary war had been in this harbor. 
There was also less of ecclesiastical intolerance 
here than among the Puritan colonies on the north 
and west, and a superior ease and freedom of life 
and manners. The intellectual stimulus which 
Dean Berkeley had given to the society of the 
town in 1729-31 had been aided by the founda- 
tion of the Redwood Library a few years later, 
and resulted in a notable degree of scholarship 
and culture. Dr. Waterhouse of Harvard Uni- 
versity stated that the laboratories of Newport 
were then the best in America. Nor was art 
so nearly unknown here as in the other small 
American towns, for Smybert had accompanied 
Berkeley in his sojourn on these shores, and por- 
trayed several of the Rhode-Islanders. Black- 
burn had visited Newport on the same errand, 
as early as 1754; and Cosmo Alexander painted 
here in 1770. Robert Feke was a skilful local 


16 ALLISTON. 


artist ; Gilbert Stuart obtained his education in 
Newport, and began to paint here; and Mal- 
bone was a native of the town and a scion of one 
of its best families. As early as 1730, Henry 
Collins, a wealthy merchant of this place, had 
collected a notable gallery of paintings, including 
portraits which he caused Smybert to paint 
of Dean Berkcley, Callender, Hitchcock, and 
Clapp. 

The master thus speaks of his boyhood at 
Newport: “ My chief pleasure now was in draw- 
ing from prints, —of all kinds of figures, land- 
scape, and animals. But I soon began to make 
pictures of my own; at what age, however, I 
cannot say. ‘The earliest compositions that I re- 
member were the storming of Count Roderick’s 
castle, from a poor (though to me delightful) 
romance of that day, and the siege of Toulon; 
the first in Indian-ink, the other in water-colors. 
I cannot recall the year in which they were done. 
To these succeeded many others, which have 
jikewise passed into oblivion. Though I never 
had any regular instructor in the art (a circum- 
stance, I would here observe, both idle and ab- 
surd to boast of), I had much incidental instruc- 


THE FIRST ART-FRIEND. 17 


tion, which I have always through life been glad 
to receive from every one in advance of myself. 
And, I may add, there is no such thing as a self- 
taught artist, in the ignorant acceptation of the 
word ; for the greatest genius that ever lived 
must be indebted to others, if not by direct 
teaching, at least indirectly through their works. 
I had, in my school-days, some of this latter kind 
of instruction from a very worthy and amiable 
man, a Mr. King, of Newport, who made quad- 
rants and compasses, and occasionally painted 
portraits. I believe he was originally bred a 
painter, but obliged, from the rare calls upon his 
pencil, to call in the aid of another craft. I used 
at first to make frequent excuses for visiting his 
shop to look at his pictures, but finding that he 
always received me kindly, I went at last without 
any, or rather with the avowed purpose of mak- 
ing him a visit. Sometimes I would take with 
me a drawing, and was sure to get a kind word 


of encouragement. It was a pleasant thing to 


me, some twenty years after this, to remind the 
old man of these little kindnesses.” 


This was not the only recompense which All- 


ston made to his generous old friend, for one of 


18 ALLSTON. 


his first oil-paintings was a portrait of Mr. King, 
bearing a distinct prophecy of the warm and 
mellow tone and rich coloring of the artist’s later 
works. The face is filled with a pleasing be- 
nignity, and the head has a noble and striking 
contour. 

While a boy, Allston was distinguished among 
his playmates for bis quick and almost fiery 
spirit and for his indomitable courage. An in- 
teresting school-boy friendship sprung up between 
him and a young native of Newport, William 
Ellery Channing, and lasted for many decades, 
beautiful and unimpaired. Together these in- 
spired lads rambled through the charming coun- . 
try around the town, and along the resounding » 
shore of the beaches, receiving such impressions 
of the beautiful and the sublime as had a pro- 
found influence upon their after-lives. Fifty 
years later Allston described Channing as hav- 
ing been a generous and noble-minded boy, his 
leader and exemplar, though several months 
younger. Another companion in these walks 
was Channing’s cousin, Richard H. Dana, who 
was a sensitive and high-strung child, younger 
than either of the others. The intimacy between 


HARVARD DAYS. 19 


these three was still kept up in the pale winter. 
of their age, when the venerable artist, the saintly 
divine, and the manly poet were accustomed to 
visit each other frequently, in their quiet Boston 
homes. 

Of his life at Harvard College he says : — 

“My leisure hours at college were chiefly de- 
voted to the pencil, to the composition equally 
of figures and landscapes ; I do not remember 
that I preferred one to the other ; my only guide 
in the choice was the inclination of the moment. 
There was an old landscape at the house of a 
friend in Cambridge (whether Italian or Spanish 
I know not) that gave me my first hiats in color 
in that branch ; it was of a rich and deep tone, 
though not by the hand of a master; the work, 
perhaps, of a moderate artist, but of one who 
lived in a good age, when he could not help catch- 
ing some of the good that was abroad. In the 
coloring of figures, the pictures of Pine, in the 
Columbian Museum, in Boston, were my first 
masters. Pine had certainly, as far as I can 
recollect, considerable merit in color. But I had 
a higher master in the head of Cardinal Benti- 
voglio, from Van Dyck, in the college library, 


20 ALLSTON. 


- which I obtained permission to copy one winter 
vacation. ‘This copy from Van Dyck was by 
Smybert, an English painter, who came to this 
country with Dean, afterwards Bishop, Berkeley. 
At that time it seemed to me perfection; but 
when I saw the original some years afterwards, I 
found I had to alter my notions of perfection. 
However, I am grateful to Smybert for the in- 
struction he gave me, — his work rather. Deliver 
me from kicking down even the weakest step of 
an early ladder.” (The same picture by Smybert 
had previously awakened the first artistic im- 
pulses in the soul of John Trumbull, whose skil- 
ful pencil afterwards depicted the great events of 
the Revolutionary era in America.) 

“IT became acquainted with Malbone but a 
short time before he quitted Newport, a circum- 
stance which I remember then regretting exceed- 
ingly, for I looked up to him with great admira- 
tion. Our not meeting earlier was owing, I sup- 
pose, to his going to another school, and being 
some years older than myself. I recollect bor- 
rowing some of his pictures on oiled paper to 
copy. Our intimacy, however, did not begin till 
I entered college, when I found him established 


MALBONE. 2I 


at Boston. He had then (for the interval was of 
several years) reached the maturity of his powers, 
and was deservedly ranked the first miniature- 
painter in the country. Malbone’s merits as an 
artist are too well known to need setting forth 
by me: I shall therefore say but a few words 
on that head. He had the happy talent, among 
his many excellences, of elevating the character 
without impairing the likeness: this was remark- 
able in his male heads ; and no woman ever lost 
any beauty from his hand; nay, the fair would 
often become still fairer under his pencil. To 
this he added a grace of execution all his own. 
My admiration of Malbone induced me at this 
time (in my Freshman year at college) to try my 
hand at miniature, but it was without success. I 
could make no hand of it; all my attempts in that 
line being so far inferior to what I could ¢hen do 
in oil, that I became disgusted with my abortive 
efforts, and gave it up. One of these miniatures, 


or rather attempts at miniature, was shown me 


several years after, and I pronounced it ‘ without | 


promise, not knowing it to be my own. I may 
add, I would have said the same had I known it. 


I may observe, however (for I know not why I 


ee a ee 


22 ALLISTON. 


should not be as just to myself as to another per- 
son), that I should not have expressed a similar 
opinion respecting its contemporaries in oil ; for 
a landscape with figures on horseback, painted 
about this time, was afterwards exhibited at 
Somerset House.” 

Forty years later he presented Mr. Waterston 
with a beautiful little sketch which he made in 
1798. Three other early sketches, in pencil, 
now in the possession of Mr. R. H. Dana, repre- 
sent log-huts and block-houses, and were proba- 
bly copied from some book on rural architecture. 
Other drawings of this time are of romantic and 
tragic scenes,— a scene from Schiller’s “ Rob- 
bers,” a castle from “The Mysteries of Udolpho,” 
and that weird picture of a maniac crushing a 
dove, which Sully so much admired. A vein of 
contrasted sentiment appeared in the ludicrous 
caricatures with which he filled the blank leaves 
of his own and his classmates’ text-books. 

At this period Harvard had less than two hun- 
dred students, and was under the presidency of 
Dr. Joseph Willard. Massachusetts and Hollis 
Halls were the chief dormitories, and Harvard 
Hall contained the chapel, library, and dining- 





CHANNING. 23 


room. The most prosperous societies were the 
Institute of 1770, the Speaking Club, and the 
Phi Beta Kappa, all of which were literary ; 
the Adelphi, a religious union ; and the Porcel- 
lian and Hasty-Pudding Clubs, devoted to social 
mysteries and much debating. Allston belonged 
to the two last named, and one of the record- 
books of the latter (of which he was secretary) 
contains a pen-sketch by his hand, depicting a 
youth seated before a huge caldron, and ladling 
its contents into his mouth. 

Dr. Waterhouse, the professor of medicine, held 
Allston under his special care while in college, 
and had a paternal friendship for him. He 
claims that the youth’s first essay in oil-painting 
was a portrait of his eldest boy, which was in the 
doctor’s possession as late as 1833. 

It is said that Allston, before he went abroad, 
painted four portraits of members of the Chan- 
ning family, including his firm friend William 
Ellery. William visited Allston almost daily while 
they were in college, and the latter once drew for 
him a quaint group of pyramidal figures, composed 
of mild caricatures of the professors and tutors, 
which Channing offered at his recitation on men- 


24 ALLSTON. 


suration. During his Junior year he wrote to 
Allston, saying, “I have no inclination for either 
divinity, law, or physic.” 

A favorite resort of the young Carolinian was 
the mansion of Judge Francis Dana, the Chief 
Justice of Massachusetts, and ex-minister to Rus- 
sia. This house was situated on Dana Hill, be- 
tween Harvard University and Boston, and was 
surrounded by wide fields which pertained to the 
estate, and were afterwards laid out in streets 
and occupied by a large population. Judge Dana 
was one of the most hospitable of men, and fre- 
quently entertained the chiefs of the Federal 
party and the leading men of the State. His 
house was almost a home to many of the students 
at the college, especially those from the South 
and the Middle States. Allston was at that time 
passionately fond of society, and became a very 
frequent visitor at the Dana mansion. 

Among his classmates were Joseph S. Buck- 
minster, afterwards a celebrated Unitarian divine 
and scholar; Lemuel Shaw, a profound jurist, and 
Chief Justice of Massachusetts ; Charles Lowell, 
D. D., another liberal theologian, the father of 
J. R. and R. T. S. Lowell; Joshua Bates, D. D, 


HOME TO CHARLESTON. 25 


President of Middlebury College; and Timothy 
Flint, famous for his writings about the Missis- 
sippi Valley and the Far West. | 

Allston’s genius for poetry manifested itself : 
during his college years, and won high considera- 
tion for the young Southron. Harvard College 
voted to mourn the death of Washington, in De- 
cember, 1799, by the following exercises: “ An 
introductory Address in Latin by the President. 
An Elegiac Poem in English by Washington 
Allston, a Senior Sophister. A Funeral Oration 
by Benjamin Marston Watson, a Senior Sophister. 
A Solemn and Pathetic Discourse by the Hollis 
Professor of Divinity.” Once more he appeared 
as a poet, on taking his degree. 

As soon as his college career was over, Allston 
hastened south to Charleston, where Malbone 
had already established himself, and was meeting 
with great success. Charleston was in those days 
pre-eminent among the Southern cities in its en- 
couragement of art, chiefly in the line of portraits 
of the members of the patrician Carolina fami- 
lies. Charles Fraser, a native of the city, painted 
no fewer than 313 miniatures and 139 landscapes 
and compositions, illustrating the fair country 


26 ALLISTON. 


saround Charleston, as well as the clear-cut fea- 
tures of the Hugers, Pettigrus, and Pinkneys. 
Sully had settled in the city late in the last cen- 
tury ; Waldo of Connecticut was liberally patron- 
ized there by the Rutledges ; De Veaux excelled 
in portraits of the planters; Coram was busy in 
Carolina about 1780; and Earle also practised 
there, in the manner of Benjamin West. 

Allston humorously called his studio at Charles- 
ton a “ picture-manufactory ”; and its chief pro- 
ductions appear to have been a head of Judas 
Iscariot, and another of St. Peter when he heard 
the cock crow. The latter, together with some of 
the youth’s college verses, aroused the keen in- 
terest of Mr. Bowman, a wealthy Carolinian of 
Scottish birth, who immediately sought out and 
generously befriended their author. Bowman was 
a ripe scholar and an accomplished conversa- 
tionalist, and delighted to welcome Allston, Mal- 
bone, and Fraser to his frequent dinner-patties. 
In after years his memory was most dear to his 
protégé. About this time Malbone painted a 
beautiful miniature of the young artist, which is 
still preserved in Charleston. 

The Allston estates af Waccamaw were in the 


PARTING FROM CAROLINA. 27 


hands of executors, one of whom offered the 
young heir a fraction of its real value for his part 
of the property. The artist’s heart was with the 
zesthetic treasures of Europe, and had no yearn- 
ing for the patriarchal life of a Carolina planter; 
and so, fearful of litigation and delays, and un- 
skilled in matters of business, he disposed of his 
share of the paternal domain at a ruinous sacri- 
fice, and appropriated the proceeds to his sup- 
port in Europe. Not only that, but so ignorant 
was he of affairs that he made no attempt to 
live on the generous interest which might have 
accrued from the moneys which he received, but 
deposited his funds with a London banker, and 
drew directly and freely thereon until they were 
exhausted. 

Certain generous Carolinians, unwilling to have 
the Waccamaw plantation pass out of the Allston 
family, offered to advance funds for the youth to 
make his foreign sojourn with; but he declined 
these proposals, preferring to keep his indepen- 
dence and to learn to rely on himself. Mr. Bow- 
man insisted on his accepting £ 100 a year from 
him during the journey and the period of study- 
ing ; and when this was declined, he proposed to 


28 ALLSTON. 


ship several tierces of rice for him. Refusing 
even this, and when Bowman would not let him 
go without a present, Allston accepted Hume’s 
History of England and a novel by Dr. Moore, 
with a letter of introduction to the latter. 

The master himself has thus described his 
morning years: “ With youth, health, the kindest 
friends, and ever before me buoyant hope, what a 
time to look back upon! I cannot but think that 
the life of an artist, whether painter or poet, de- 
pends much on a happy youth ; I do not mean as 
to outward circumstances, but as to his inward 
being; in my own case, at least, I feel the de- 
pendence ; for I seldom step into the ideal world 
without I find myself going back to the age of 
first impressions. The germs of our best thoughts 
are certainly often to be found there; sometimes, 
indeed (though rarely), we find them in full 
flower; and when so, how beautiful seem to us 
these flowers through an atmosphere of thirty 
years! ’Tis in this way that poets and painters 
keep their minds young. How else could an old 
man make the page or the canvas palpitate with 
the hopes, and fears, and joys, the impetuous, 
impassioned emotions of youthful lovers or reck- 


me see Cr we. YOUTH. 29 


less heroes? ‘There is a period of life when the 
ocean of time seems to force upon the mind a 
barrier against itself, forming, as it were, a per- 
manent beach, on which the advancing years 
successively break, only to be carried back by a 
returning current to that furthest deep whence 
they first flowed. Upon this beach the poetry 
of life may be said to have its birth; where the 
real ends and the zdea/ begins. . . 

“Up to this time my favorite subjects, with an 
occasional comic intermission, were banditti. I 
well remember one of these, where I thought 
I had happily succeeded in cutting a throat! 
The subject of this precious performance was, 
robbers fighting with each other for the spoils, 
over the body of a murdered traveller. And 
clever ruffians I thought them. I did not get rid 
of this banditti mania until I had been over a 
year in England. It seems that a fondness for 
violence is common with young artists. One 
might suppose that the youthful mind would de- 
light in scenes of an opposite character. Perhaps 
the reason of the contrary may be found in this: 
that the natural condition of youth being one in- 


cessant excitement, from the continued influx of 


30 ALLSTON. 


novelty, — for all about us must az one time be 
new, — it must needs have something fierce, ter- 
rible, or unusual to force it above its wonted 
tone. But the time must come to every man 
who lives beyond the middle age, when ‘ there is 
nothing new under the sun.’ His novelties’then 
are the rzfaczmenti of his former life. The gentler 
emotions are then as early friends who revisit 
him in dreams, and who, recalling the past, give 
a grace and beauty, nay, a rapture even, to what 
in the heyday of youth had seemed to him spirit- 
less and flat. And how beautiful is this law of 
nature, — perfuming, as it were, our very graves 


with the unheeded flowers of childhood.” 


AT LONDON. 31 


Cine tae LE, 


Studies in London. — West, Fuseli, and Northcote. — With Van- 
derlyn at Paris, — Switzerland and the Italian Lakes. — Rome. 
— Thorwaldsen and the Humboldts. — Irving and Coleridge. — 
“The American Titian.’”” — Return to America. — Marriage to 


Miss Channing. 


In May, 1801, Allston embarked for England, 
in company with his congenial friend Malbone. 
The latter remained in London five months, 
studying the pictures there, and executing his 
exquisite masterpiece, ‘The Hours’ (now in the 
Providence Athenzum). He then returned to 
Charleston, and our artist never saw him again. 

Soon after Allston’s arrival in London he ob- 
tained permission to draw at the Royal Academy, 
by submitting a drawing from a cast of the Glad- 
lator ; and another sketch won for him the ticket 
of an entered student. “Mr. West received me 
with the greatest kindness, —I shall never forget 
his benevolent smile when he took me by the 
hand: it is still fresh in my memory, linked with 


32 ALSTON. 


the last of like kind which accompanied the last 
shake of his hand, when I took a final leave of 
him in 1818. His gallery was open to me at all 
times, and his advice always ready and kindly 
given. He was a man overflowing with the milk 
of human kindness.” Allston was fascinated 
by the exquisite taste of Sir Joshua Reynolds’s 
pictures, and expressed his wonder at the slight 
acquaintance which had existed between Rey- 
nolds, Gainsborough, and Wilson, three men who 
had emerged, with a common purpose, from an 
age of lead. He thought Fuseli the greatest of 
living painters (a belief which was afterwards 
qualified), and was made happy by a courteous 
welcome to the Swiss artist’s studio. He told 
him that he had journeyed to London in the hope 
of becoming an historical painter, and was an- 
swered, drearily enough, “ Then you have come 
a great way to starve, sir.” Fuseli had recently 
exhibited a series of pictures in illustration of 
Milton, and showed Allston such of the can- 
vases as were not rolled up, being highly pleased 
with the youth’s enthusiastic praises and his free 
quotations from the great English poet. 

The young student began his labors by draw- 


LONDON SOCIETY. 33 


ing from plaster casts, at the Royal Academy. 
The huge paintings of West appear to have ex- 
ercised no effect upon him, and it was not until 
after he returned to America that his true inclina- 
tion appeared. The academic precision learned 
in London was cold and meaningless to his 
mind, until the magic wand of the Venetian 
coloring awakened him to the glory of a higher 
art. 

Bowman’s letter to the author of “Zeluco” 
was never delivered, for the gifted Moore died 
about the time of Allston’s arrival in London. 
But the high culture and delightful conversation 
of the young Carolinian secured admission for 
him to the best literary and artistic circles of 
the city, and his subsequent reminiscences of 
metropolitan life were full of interest and attrac- 
tion. He was also a great favorite among his 
professional brethren, to whom he was introduced 
and commended by the venerable West. But 
his numerous social engagements were not al- 
lowed to conflict with his studies, which he 
practised for more than two years with great 
assiduity. 

About this time, also, Rembrandt Peale. of 


34 ALLSTON. 


Pennsylvania, entered West’s studio as a pupil, 
and was introduced to Allston and Lawrence. 
Our artist’s habit at this period was to read one 
or two articles from Pilkington’s Dictionary of 
Painters, as an accompaniment to his breakfast, 
before entering upon the labors of the day. 
Many of these were written by Fuseli, whom he 
regarded as an inspiring and graphic critic, giv- 
ing clear ideas and a distinct apprehension of 
the works of many painters with whom he was 
altogether unfamiliar. Allston has preserved 
several sparkling anecdotes of Fuseli and his 
contemporaries, two of which we may give here. 
Sir William Beechy was criticising a young art- 
ist’s picture, and said, “‘ Very well, C., very well 
indeed. You have improved, C. But, C., why 
did you make the coat and the background of 
the same color?” “For harmony, sir,” replied 
the youth: “O, no! C.,. that’s not ,banneny, 
that’s monotony.” Again, Fuseli asked the 
opinion of the Academy porter on one of his 
new pictures. “ Law! Mr. Fuseli, I don’t know 
anything of pictures.” “ But you know a horse, 
Sam ; you have been in the Guards, you can tell 
if that is like a horse?” “Yes, sir.” “‘ Well?” 


NORTHCOTE AND REYNOLDS. 35 


“ Why, it seems to me, then, Mr. Fuseli, that — 
that five men could ride on him.” “Then you 
think his back too long?” “A bit, sir.” 

Allston was also acquainted with Northcote, 
the crusty old Devonshire painter, and pupil of 
Sir Joshua Reynolds. He used to tell that he 
once asked Northcote’s opinion as to the merits 
of William Hamilton, one of the illustrators of 
Boydell’s Shakespeare, and the tart answer was 
made, “A very silly painter, sir, a very siily 
painter.” Of the pictures of Reynolds, North- 
cote’s master, the young Carolinan thought so 
highly that he said, “There is a fascination 
about them which makes it almost ungrateful to 
think of their defects.” 

So fearless was Allston of his ability that he 
sent three pictures to the Exhibition of the Royal 
Academy, —‘ A French Soldier telling a Story,’ 
‘A Rocky Coast with Banditti,’ and ‘A Land- 
scape with Horsemen.’ ‘The latter was painted 
while the artist was at Harvard; and the 
‘French Soldier’ was sold to the European 
Museum, whose proprietor ordered a companion- 
picture, ‘The Poet’s Ordinary.’ These two were 
comic subjects, and were perhaps accompanied 


36 ALLSTON. 


by cthers of a similar character, for the biogra- 
pher of Sir Thomas Lawrence makes the follow- 
ing amazing statement: “In mentioning Ameri- 
can painters, it would be unpardonable to omit 
the broad humor, in the style of Hogarth, in the 
pictures by Mr. Allston.” It is to be noticed 
that Holmes also finds the spirit of Hogarth in 
some of the artist’s earlier sketches. 

In November, 1803, Allston and Vanderlyn, 
the gifted and unfortunate American painter, 
journeyed from London to the Low Countries, 
and from thence to Paris. ‘The former remained 
for several months in the French capital, and 
painted four pictures, besides copying one of 
Rubens’s works, in the Luxembourg, and Paul 
Veronese’s great composition of “The Marriage 
at Cana.” He said that during his sojourn at 
Paris he “ worked like a mechanic.” 

Never before nor since was there such a 
magnificent collection of pictures and statuary 
as that which dazzled the eyes of Paris at this 
time, attesting the victories of Napoleon by the 
choicest art-treasures of the Continent. The 
Louvre contained the noblest works of Raphael 
and Titian, from Italy ; the masterpieces of Mu- 


ARTISTIC KAPTOURES. - 37 


rillo, stolen from Spain ; and the richest flower- 
ings of Teutonic and Batavian art, which had been 
torn from the German and Flemish churches and 
palaces. Through this peerless gallery the poet- 
painter rambled for weeks, attended by Vander- 
lyn, a worthy comrade. He wrote thus: “ Titian, 
Tintoret, and Paul Veronese absolutely en- 
chanted me, for they took away all sense of 
~ subject. When I stood before the Peter Martyr, ' 
the Miracle of the Slave, and the Marriage at 
Cana, I thought of nothing but of the gorgeous 
concert of colors, or rather of the indefinite forms 
(I cannot call them sensations) of pleasure with 
which they filled the imagination. It was the 
poetry of color which I felt ; procreative in its 
nature, giving birth to a thousand things which 
the eye cannot see, and distinct from their cause. 
I did not, however, stop to analyze my feelings, 
— perhaps at that time I could not have done it. 
I was content with my pleasure without seeking 
the cause. But I now understand it, and ¢hzvk 
I understand why so many great colorists, espe- 
cially Tintoret and Paul Veronese, gave so little 
heed to the ostensible s/orzes of their composi- 
tions. In some of them, the Marriage at Cana, 


38 ALLSTON. 


for instance, there is not the slightest clew given 
by which the spectator can guess at the subject. 
They addressed themselves, not to the senses 
merely, as some have supposed, but rather 
through them to that region (if I may so speak) 
of the imagination which is supposed to be under 
the exclusive dominion of music, and which, by 
similar excitement, they caused to teem with 
visions that ‘lap the soul in Elysium.’ In other 
words, they leave the subject to be made by the 
spectator, provided he possesses the imaginative 
faculty, — otherwise they will have little more 
meaning to him than a calico counterpane.” 
After the sojourn at Paris (let us borrow the 
beautiful words of Charles Sumner), “he di- 
rected his steps toward Italy, the enchanted 
ground of literature, history, and art, — strown 
with richest memorials of the Past, — filled with 
scenes memorable in the Progress of Man, — 
teaching by the pages of philosophers and his- 
torians,— vocal with the melody of poets, — 
ringing with the music which St. Cecilia pro- 
tects, —glowing with the living marble and 
canvas, — beneath a sky of heavenly purity and 
brightness, — with the sunsets which Claude has 


SWITZERLAND. 39 


painted, — parted by the Apennines, early wit- 
nesses of the unrecorded Etruscan civilization ; 
surrounded by the snow-capped Alps, and the 
blue, classic waters of the Mediterranean Sea. 
The deluge of war submerging Europe had sub- 
sided here, and our artist took up his peaceful 
abode in Rome, the modern home of Art.” 

On his way from Paris to Italy, Allston leis- 
urely traversed Switzerland, and experienced the 
keenest pleasure from a contemplation of its 
grand scenery. He crossed the Lake of Lu- 
cerne, and then went over the St. Gotthard Pass 
to Bellinzona and the exquisite lakes of Northern 
Italy. He says: “ The impressions left by the 
sublime scenery of Switzerland are still fresh to 
this day. A new world had been opened to me, 
—nor have I met with anything like it since. 
The scenery of the Apennines is quite of a dif- 
ferent character. By the by, I was particularly 
struck in this journey with the truth of Turner’s 
Swiss scenes, —the poetic truth,— which none 
before or since have given, with the exception 
of my friend Brokedon’s magnificent work on 
the passes of the Alps. I passed a night, and 
saw the sun rise, on the Lake Maggiore. Such a 


40 ALLSTON. 


sunrise! The giant Alps seemed literally to rise 
from their purple beds, and, putting on their 
crowns of gold, to send up a hallelujah almost 
audible.” 

Allston left London in November, 1803, and 
entered Rome in March, 1805, and there is 
nearly a year of this interval unaccounted for. 
It was doubtless during this period that he made 
a long visit to Florence, where he painted the 
picture which is now in the Boston Athenzum. 
Some part of the time was probably spent at 
Venice, in studying the processes of that school 
of art to which the American master afterwards 
clung so closely. 

Late in 1805 Vanderlyn rejoined Allston in 
Rome, and these two were the only students from 
America then in the city. They cast in their 
lots with an association of youths from Germany, 
Sweden, and Denmark, who assembied frequently 
to draw from the living model ; and although the 
two transatlantic students lacked the government 
patronage and pensions which so greatly aided 
their European rivals, they had marked success 
in contending for the honors of their art. 

The four years which Allston spent in Italy 





ALLSTON ON RAPHAEL. 4I 


were devoted to an earnest study of the old 
masters, and of that oldest master, Nature, whose 
fairest works are lavishly displayed in the land 
of the Apennines, — between AXtna and the Alps. 
The effects of this long communion with such 
sources of inspiration appeared in his subsequent 
pictures and writings, and added a new charm to 
his graceful conversation. He was profoundly 
moved by the contemplation of the great master- 
pieces of art at Rome, and enjoyed them in a 
spirit sufficiently rare among youths of his age, 
saying, “I had rather see a picture which I could 
not equal than one which I could surpass.” It 
was the same sentiment which he expressed, in 
after years, in the words, “I had rather be the 
second painter in the world than the first, be- 
cause I could then have some one to admire and 
‘look up to.” 

Allston has himself told how he was moved by 
the masterpieces of ancient art. ‘It is needless 
to say how I was affected by Raphael, the great- 
est master of the affections in our art. In beauty 
he has often been. surpassed, but in grace, — the 
native grace of character,—in the expression 


of intellect, and, above all, sanctity, he has no 


42 ALLSTON. 


equal. What particularly struck me in his works 
was the genuine life (if I may so call it) that 
seemed, without impairing the distinctive char- 
acter, to pervade them all ; for even his humblest 
figures have a something, either in look, air, or 
gesture, akin to the venustas of his own nature, 
as if, like living beings under the influence of a 
master-spirit, they had partaken, in spite of them- 
selves, of a portion of the charm which swayed 
them. This power of infusing one’s own “fe, 
as it were, into that which is feigned, appears to 
me the sole prerogative of genius. In a work of 
art, this is what a man may well call Azs own ; 
for it cannot be borrowed or imitated. Of Mi- 
chael Angelo I know not how to speak in ade- 
quate terms of reverence. With all his faults 
(but who is without them ?), even Raphael bows 
before him.” 

In criticising a painting by Caracci, Allston 
used the following Dantesque sentences: “The 
subject was the body of the Virgin borne for 
interment by four apostles. The figures are 
colossal ; the tone dark and of tremendous color. 
It seemed, as I looked at it, as if the ground 
shook at their tread, and the air were darkened 


by their grief.”’ 








ROMAN SOCIETY. 43 


Vanderlyn has told us how he and Allston, 
Turner and Fenimore Cooper, frequented the 
famous old Caffe Greco, the resort of the north- 
ern barbarians in Rome for so many decades. 
There, too, were to be seen Thorwaldsen and 
Cornelius, Andersen and Louis of Bavaria, Flax- 
man and Gibson, Shelley, Keats, and Byron. 
Thorwaldsen could hardly have been a student 
with Allston, as some assert, for he had been in 
Rome eight years when the latter arrived, and 
had already won rich pecuniary rewards and the 
praise of Canova. Nevertheless, he was a friend 
of the American artist, and often in after years 
pointed to him as a proof that the loftiest abili- 
ties were indigenous to the Western world. 

Another group of eminent persons then living 
in Rome, and accessible to the young Carolinian, 
was gathered around William von Humboldt, the 
Prussian ambassador, and Alexander von Hum- 
boldt, who had just returned from his travels 
among the South-American Andes. The Danish 
envoy, Baron von Schubert, and the Neapolitan 
envoy, Cardinal Fesch, were also members of the 
artistic society of the city. Madame de Staél 
was living there at the same time, with A. W. 
von Schlegel and Sismondi. 


A4 ALLSTON. 


During the period of Allston’s sojourn at 
Rome, the city was continually menaced by the 
armies of Napoleon, which had occupied several 
of the Papal provinces. In February, 1808, the 
French troops entered the gates, disarming the 
Pontifical guards, and the States of the Church 
were converted into provinces of the Empire. 
Pope Pius VII. was imprisoned in the Quirinal 
Palace, but published thence a bull, excommuni- 
cating all who had commanded or were con- 
cerned in the invasion of the city. In July of 
the next year Pius was arrested by French offi- 
cers and haled away to his prolonged captivity of 
five years at Savona and Fontainebleau. 

The fascination which Allston exercised upon 
all around him was felt strongly by Washington 
Irving, who says: “I first became acquainted 
with Washington Allston early in the spring of 
1805. He had just arrived from France, I from 
Sicily and Naples. I was then not quite twenty- 
two years of age, —he a little older. ‘There was 
something to me inexpressibly fascinating in the 
appearance and manners of Allston. I do not 
think I have ever been more completely capti- 
vated on a first acquaintance. He was of a 








IRVING FASCINATED. 45 


light and graceful form, with large blue eyes, 
and black silken hair, waving and curling round 
a pale, expressive countenance. Everything 
about him spoke the man of intellect and refine- 
ment. His conversation was copious, animated, 
and highly graphic ; warmed by a genial sensi- 
bility and benevolence, and enlivened at times 
by a chaste and gentle humor. A young men’s 
intimacy took place immediately between us, and 
we were much together during my brief sojourn 
at Rome. He was taking a general view of the 
place before settling himself down to his pro- 
fessional studies. We visited together some of 
the finest collections of paintings, and he taught 
me how to visit them to the most advantage, 
guiding me always to the masterpieces, and pass- 
ing by the others without notice. ‘Never at- 
tempt to enjoy every picture in a great collec- 
tion,’ he would say, ‘unless you have a year to 
bestow upon it. You may as well try to enjoy 
every dish at a Lord Mayor’s feast. Both mind 
and palate get confounded by a great variety and 
rapid succession, even of delicacies. The mind 
can only take in a certain number of images and 
impressions distinctly ; by multiplying the num- 


46 ALLSTON. 


ber, you weaken each, and render the whole con- 
fused and vague. Study the choice pieces in 
each collection ; look upon none else, and you 
will afterwards find them hanging up in your 
memory.’ 

‘“‘ He was exquisitely sensitive to the graceful 
and the beautiful, and took great delight in paint- 
ings which excelled in color; yet he was strongly 
moved and roused by objects of grandeur. I 
well recollect the admiration with which he con- 
templated the sublime statue of Moses by Michael 
Angelo, and his mute awe and reverence on en- 
tering the stupendous pile of St. Peter’s. Indeed, 
the sentiment of veneration, so characteristic of 
the elevated and poetic mind, was continually 
manifested by him. His eyes would dilate ; his 
pale countenance would flush; he would breathe 
quick, and almost gasp in expressing his feelings, 
when excited by any object of grandeur and sub- 
limity. . 

“We had delightful rambles together about 
Rome and its environs, one of which came near 
changing my whole course of life. We had been 
visiting a stately villa, with its gallery of paint- 
ings, its marble halls, its terraced gardens set out 








WASHINGTON IRVING. 47 


with statues and fountains, and were returning to 
Rome about sunset. The blandness of the air, 
the serenity of the sky, the transparent purity of 
the atmosphere, and that nameless charm which 
hangs about an Italian landscape, had derived 
additional effect from being shared with Allston, 
and pointed out by him with the enthusiasm of 
an artist. As I listened to him, and gazed upon 
the landscape, I drew in my mind a contrast be- 
tween our different pursuits and prospects. He 
was to reside amid these delightful scenes, sur- 
rounded by masterpieces of art, by classic and 
historic monuments, by men of congenial minds 
and tastes, engaged like him in the constant study 
of the sublime and beautiful. I was to return 
home to the dry study of the law, for which I had 
no relish, and, as I feared, but little talent. 
‘Suddenly the thought presented itself, ‘Why 
might I not remain here, and turn painter?’ 
I had taken lessons in drawing before leaving 
America, and had been thought to have some 
aptness, as I certainly had a strong inclination 
for it. I mentioned the idea to Allston, and he 
caught at it with eagerness. Nothing could be 
more feasible. We would take an apartment to- 


48 ALLSTON. 


gether. He would give me all the instruction 
and assistance in his power, and was sure I would 
succeed. | 

“For two or three days the idea took full pos- 
session of my mind; but I believe it owed its 
main force to the lovely evening ramble in which 
I first conceived it, and to the romantic friend- 
ship I had formed with Allston. Whenever it 
recurred to mind, it was always connected with 
beautiful Italian scenery, palaces, and statues, 
and fountains, and terraced gardens, and Allston 
as the companion of my studio. I promised 
myself a world of enjoyment in his society, and 
in the society of several artists with whom he had 
made me acquainted, and pictured forth a scheme 
of life all tinted with the rainbow-hues of youth- 
ful promise. 

“My lot in life, however, was differently cast. 
Doubts and fears gradually clouded over my pros- 
pect; the rainbow-tints faded away ; I began to 
apprehend a sterile reality; so I gave up the 
transient but delightful prospect of remaining 
in Rome with Allston and turning painter.” 

The poet-painter says of another friend: “To 
no other man whom I have known do I owe so 





d 





COLERIDGE. 49 


much intellectually as to Mr. Coleridge, with 
whom I became acquainted in Rome, and who 
has honored me with his friendship for more than © 
five-and-twenty years. He used to call Rome 
the sé/ent city ; but I never could think of it as 
such, while with him; for, meet him when or 
where I would, the fountain of his mind was never 
dry, but, like the far-reaching aqueducts that once 
supplied this mistress of the world, its living 
stream seemed specially to flow for every classic 
ruin over which we wandered. And when I recall 
some of our walks under the pines of the Villa 
Borghese, I am almost tempted to dream that I 
had once listened to Plato in the groves of the 
Academy. It was there he taught me this golden 
rule: never to gudge of any work of art by its de- 
jects ; a rule as wise as benevolent ; and one that 
while it has spared me much pain, has widened 
my sphere of pleasure.” 

Allston studied not only drawing and painting, 
but also modelling in clay, to which he devoted 
much time. He always kept up the practice of 
modelling, and recommended it to young painters 
as one of the best means of acquiring an accu- 


rate knowledge of the joints. In the study of 


50 ALLSTON. 


anatomy he labored unremittingly, considering 
the relations of bones, joints, and muscles, and 
bestowing prolonged attention on the structure 
and peculiarities of the external human skin. 
He also gave himself eagerly to the study and 
analysis of the methods employed by the old 
masters in coloring. 

His magical coloring attracted much atten- 
tion, even in Rome. ‘Twenty years later, when 
Weir was studying his profession in that city, 
the Italian artists asked after a countryman of 
his, for whom they had no other name than the 
American Titian. When Weir spoke the name 
of Allston, in calling the roll of American art- 
ists, they exclaimed, “That’s the man!” This 
wonderful wealth of color was ever the grand 
distinction of the master, and was imbued with 
depth and richness and divine harmony. He 
made no secret of his processes and materials, 
but those who sought to avail themselves thereof 
found that they lacked the fine inner sense of 
color. His marvellous carnations were never 
even imitated. He was altogether dependent 
on his mastery of colors in simple landscapes 


and ideal female heads, where the charms of 





ALLSTON’S COLORING. 51 


design and incident were absent, yet the sense 
of beauty is fully satisfied by the richness of 
the hues. 

William Ware says: “When, after a careful 
study of very many of the best instances of 
Titian’s pencil, I returned, and, with that experi- 
ence fresh in my mind, again re-examined the 
best works of Allston, I felt that, in the great 
Venetian, I had found nothing more true, noth- 
ing more beautiful, nothing more perfect, than 
I had already seen in Allston.” An able critic, 
in Bunsen’s great work on Rome, avers that All- 
ston’s colors came nearer Titian’s than those of 
any other modern artist. Sandby, the historian 
of the Royal Academy, says that “Allston was 
famous in Rome for rich color... obtained by 
an extensive use of asphaltum, after the manner 
of Rembrandt.” 

In 1805 the young art-student painted a por- 
trait of himself, which he gave to his friend Mrs. 
N. Amory, of Newport. In this early work the 
connoisseur cannot fail to see intimations of the 
grace, vigor, and minute finish of the artist’s 
later pictures, while the uncritical observer is 
charmed with the youthful sweetness of the face. 


52 ALLSTON. 


Two other small pictures which he painted at 
Rome were ‘David playing the Harp before 
Saul’ and ‘The Romans and the Serpent of 
Epidaurus.’ 

In 1809 Allston returned to America, and re- 
mained in Boston for nearly two years, when he 
married the lady to whom he had long been 
engaged. She was Miss Ann Channing, the 
daughter of William Channing, a prominent 
lawyer of Newport, and granddaughter of Wil- 
liam Ellery, a signer of the Declaration of In- 
dependence. She was thirty-one years old when 
Allston married her. | 

In a letter to Mr. Ellery, William Ellery Chan- 
ning said: “A few hours ago Washington and 
Ann, after their long and patient courtship, were 
united in marriage... . Your granddaughter has 
found, I believe, an excellent husband, one who 
from principle and affection will make her hap- 
piness his constant object. I hope that she will 
settle at no great distance from us ; but we have 
not yet sufficient taste for the arts to give Mr. 
Allston the encouragement he deserves.” 

During this sojourn at Boston the master — 


wrote some of the poems which were afterwards 





SAMUEL F. B. MORSE. 53 


published in “The Sylphs of the Seasons.” They 
were read, in manuscript, by many of his per- 
sonal friends, and called forth high praise. In 
1811 he also read a poem before the Phi Beta 
Kappa of Harvard College. During this visit 
to America Allston received several visits from 
his old friend Irving, who was now getting fairly 
to work in literature. 

About this time S. F. B. Morse, the son of 
Jedediah Morse, the celebrated geographer, 
graduated from Yale College, and went home to 
his father’s parsonage at Charlestown, Mass. 
Ever since the fourth year of his age he had 
drawn and painted, unaided by instruction, and 
now he determined to adopt art as a profession. 
Allston, ever ready and even anxious to help 
young men in whom he saw the divine light of 
genius, sought him out and directed his first 
studies, awakening in his mind a loving rever- 
ence which time never changed. 

It is said that Allston paid some attention to 
portrait-painting after his return to America, 
charging higher prices than Stuart, who received 
¢ 150 for a kit-cat picture (28 by 36 inches) and 
$100 for a bust. He was once asked if he 


54 ALLSTON. 


did n’t find the need of rest, and answered, “ No, 
I only require a change. After I paint a por- 
trait I paint a landscape, and then a portrait 
again.” His studio was in the premises on 
Court Street, between Brattle Street and Corn- 
hill, where Smybert, Dean Berkeley’s Scottish 
protégé, had painted eighty years before. Here 
Allston made portraits of several local celebrities. 

Benjamin West once told Walter Channing 
that “ Allston should never have left London. 
His course here was plain, — his success certain. 
Here was the proper ground for his labor. He 
should never have gone to America, —or if he 
went, it should only have been on a visit. Never 
should he have married. He was already mar- 
ried, — married to the Art. He should have 


married no other.” 





LIVERPOOL. 55 


CHAPTER HI. 


Return to London.—Collins, Leslie, and Morse.—Sir George 

- Beaumont. — West. — Coleridge and Southey. — Death of Mrs. 
Allston. — Paris. — Lord Egremont. — Irving. — Homeward 
Bound. . 


In the year 1811 the master once more turned 
his steps toward London, to refresh himself at 
the springs of the Royal Academy, and to feel 
again the stimulus of a healthy rivalry. Mrs. 
Allston was the companion of his journey and 
the joy of his new home. The good ship Lydia 
sailed from New York in July, 1811, bearing the 
Allstons and Morse, with eleven other passen- 
gers. After a voyage of twenty-six days the 
vessel reached Liverpool, and the Boston trio 
established themselves at the Liverpool-Arms 
Hotel. But they were hurried from the city by 
the Mayor’s orders, since hostilities were then 
impending between Great Britain and the United 
States, and all Americans were regarded with 
suspicion. They set off for London in a post- 


56 ALLSTON. 


chaise, and made the journey of two hundred 
miles in a week, although Mrs. Allston was in 
very poor health. ‘The master immediately re- 
newed his former friendship with West, to whom 
he introduced young Morse ; and settled in lodg- 
ings at 49 London Street, visiting his young pro- 
/égé every day, to talk and smoke a cigar with 
him. Soon afterwards Charles R. Leslie came 
across the ocean to begin those careful studies, 
by which he became one of the most famous 
historical painters of England. 

Leslie speaks thus of the time when he and 
Morse were at London, in 1811: “Our Mentors © 
were Allston and King; nor could we have been 
better provided: Allston, a most amiable and 
polished gentleman and a painter of the purest 
taste ; and King, warm-hearted, sincere, sensible, 
prudent, and the strictest of economists.” Les- 
lie, then seventeen years old, was bitterly home- 
sick for Philadelphia, and found it possible to be 
unhappy even in London, where in later years he 
attained such proud honors. Morse was a year 
or two older, and labored diligently in acquiring 
the art which his subsequent invention of the 
electric telegraph rendered him independent of. 


vy oe 4. he* “Pe a 





LESLIE AND MORSE. 57 


The two youths lived together, in dreary rooms 
near Fitzroy Square, and visited Mrs. Siddons’s 
performances and copied the Elgin Marbles in 
company. West and Allston were their instruc- 
tors and advisers, permitting them to see all 
their pictures in various stages of progress, and 
helping them in many ways. Leslie says that 
“it was Allston who first awakened what little 
sensibility I may possess to the beauties of color. 
He first directed my attention to the Venetian 
school, particularly to the works of Paul Ve- 
ronese, and taught me to see, through the accu- 
mulated dirt of ages, the exquisite charm that 
lay beneath. Yet for a long time I took the 
merit of the Venetians on trust, and, if left to 
myself, should have preferred works which I 
now feel to be comparatively worthless. I re- 
member when the picture of ‘The Ages,’ by 
Titian, was first pointed out to me by Allston 
as an exquisite work, I thought he was laugh- 
ing at me.” 

Allston was a severe teacher and an unflinch- 
ing critic, as Morse shows in one of his letters 
home, saying: “ Mr. Allston is our most intimate 
friend and companion. I can’t feel too grateful 


58 ALLSTON. 


to him for his attentions to me; he calls every 
day, and superintends all that we are doing. 
When I am at a stand and perplexed in some 
parts of the picture, he puts me right, and encour- 
ages me to proceed, by praising those parts which 
he thinks good; but he is faithful, and always 
tells me when anything is bad. It is mortifying, 
sometimes, when I have been painting all day 
very hard, and begin to be pleased with what I 
have done, and on showing it to Mr. Allston, 
with the expectation of praise, and not only of 
praise, but a score of ‘excellents, well-dones, 
and admirables,’ —I say, it is mortifying to hear 
him, after a long silence, say: ‘ Very bad, sir; 
that is not flesh, it is mud, sir; it is painted with 
brick-dust and clay.’ I have felt, sometimes, 
ready to dash my palette-knife through it, and 
to feel at the moment quite angry with him ; but 
a little reflection restores me. I see that Mr. 
Allston is not a /flatterer, but a friend, and that, 
really to improve, I must see my fauéts. What 
he says after this always puts me in good 
humor again. He tells me to put a few flesh- 
tints here, a few gray ones there, and to clear up 
such and such a part, by such and such colors; and 





MORSE’S LOVE FOR ALLSTON. 59 


not only that, but takes the palette and brushes, 
and shows me how. In this way he assists me ; 
I think it one of the greatest blessings that I am 
under his eyes. I don’t know how many errors 
I might have fallen into if it had not been for 
his attentions.” 

Early in 1866 Professor Morse bought Leslie’s 
portrait of Allston, and presented it to the Na- 
tional Academy of Design, saying: “There are 
associations in my mind with those two eminent 
and beloved names which appeal too strongly to 
me to be resisted. ... Allston was more than any 
other person my master in art. Leslie was my 
life-long cherished friend and fellow-pupil, whom 
I loved as a brother. We all lived together for 
years in the closest intimacy and in the same 
house.” ) 

In the little coterie of which Allston was the 
head were found Charles B. King, the Rhode- 
IsJand artist; Leslie-and Morse; Collard, the 
merry musician ; and Lonsdale, a mediocre por- 
trait-painter who made excellent company.  F re- 
quent were the evening parties at their houses, 
when they assembled for social pleasures and 
conversaticn. Leslie wrote to his sister that 


6o ALLSTON. 


“Mr. and Mrs. Allston are the only friends we 
have left that are very near us, and if I were 
to lose the society of Mr. Allston I should 
not wish to remain any longer in England.” 
John Trumbull, the American historical painter, 
was then occupying a diplomatic post, and All- 
ston said of him: “ Among the many persons 
from whom I received attentions, during my 
residence in London, I must not omit Colonel 
Trumbull, who always treated me with the ut- 
most courtesy.” 

In 1811 Leslie introduced Allston to William 
Collins, who was afterwards a Royal Academi- 
cian, famous for his landscapes, marines, and 
genre pictures of rustic English children. The 
American artist became very intimate with the 
Collins family, and their friendship was kept up 
to the end of life. In the biography of William 
Collins, written by his illustrious son, Wilkie 
Collins, many of his most important mental ac- 
quisitions are referred to the effects of his inti- 
macy with Allston and Coleridge. The great 
novelist thus characterizes the Carolinian artist: 
“To a profound and reflective intellect he 


united an almost feminine delicacy of taste and 


STR GEORGE BEAUMONT. 61 


tenderness of heart, which gave a peculiar charm 
to his conversation, and an unusual eloquence 
to his opinions. . . . Mr. Collins owed to his 
short personal intercourse with this valued com- 
panion, not only much delightful communication 
on the Art, but the explanation of many relig- 
ious difficulties under which his mind then la- 
bored, and the firm settlement of those religious 
principles which were afterwards so apparent 
in every action of his life.” 

About this time Sir George Beaumont, a friend 
of Sir Joshua Reynolds and an accomplished 
connoisseur, wrote a very complimentary letter 
to Allston, having seen the sketch of his great 
picture of ‘The Dead Man Revived.’ He re- 
quested the artist to paint another compostion 
for the new church at Ashby de la Zouch, for 
which he offered him £ 200. ‘The Angel De- 
livering St. Peter from Prison’ was the result 
of this commission, to which the artist devoted 
six months ; and was much admired by the noble 
patron. Ata later day, however, it was replaced 
by a stained window, and remanded to one of 
the garrets of Beaumont’s mansion, whence it 


was rescued by Dr. Hooper, an American ad- 


62 ALLSTON. 


mirer of its author, and removed to Boston, and 
subsequently to the chapel of the Massachusetts 
Insane Asylum, at Worcester. The figures in 
this composition are larger than life, and the 
head of the angel is a portrait of Mrs. Allston. 
The highly finished study for the head of St. 
Peter was exhibited in Boston in 1837. 

Allston said: “ Among my English friends it 
is no disparagement to place at their head Sir 
George Beaumont. It is pleasant to think of 
my obligations to such a man, @ gentleman in his 
very nature. Gentle, brilliant, generous, —I was 
going to attempt his character, but I will not; it 
was so peculiar and finely textured that I know 
but one man who could draw it, and that ’s Cole- 
ridge, who knew him well, — to know whom was 
to honor.” 

Sir George was favored by the intimate friend- 
ship of Wordsworth, who: first advised him to 
visit Allston, giving as a reason that Coleridge 
said that his picture of ‘Cupid and Psyche’ 
had not been surpassed in its coloring since the 
days of Titian. In 1815 Beaumont asked B. R. 
Haydon, Landseer’s master, to go to Allston’s 


studio and see the ‘St. Peter.’ Haydon com- 





HOWARD PAYNE. 63 


mended Allston for having abandoned portrait- 
ure, and said that “next to knowing what one 
can do, the best acquisition for an artist is to 
know what he can’t.” 

Early in 1813 Mr. and Mrs. Allston, with 
Leslie and Morse, enjoyed a pleasant trip to 
Hampton Court, where they doubtless studied 
the ancient pictures. At this time the brilliant 
young American actor and dramatist, John How- 
ard Payne, was playing at the Drury-Lane The- 
atre with great success. He was a frequent 
and welcome guest of the Allstons, who had 
known him and his family very well in America. 
In the beautiful spring season Leslie, Morse, 
and the Allstons made a pleasant journey of ten 
days to Windsor, Oxford, and Blenheim Palace, 
enjoying uncommonly fine weather. 

In 1813 Morse wrote the following appreci- 
ative sentences about his noble teacher: “I 
cannot close this letter without telling you how 
much I am indebted to that excellent man Mr. 
Allston ; he is extremely partial to me, and has 
often told me that he is proud of calling me his 
pupil ; he visits me every evening, and our con-_ 
versation is generally upon the inexhaustible 


“s 


64 ALLSTON= 


subject of our dvzne art, and upon ome, which 
is next in our thoughts. I know not in what 
words to speak of Mr. Allston. I can truly say 
I do not know the slightest imperfection in him ; 
he is amiable, affectionate, learned, possessed of. 
the greatest powers of mind and genius, modest, 
unassuming, and, above all, a religious man. 
You may perhaps suppose that my partiality for 
him blinds me to his faults; but no man could 
conceal, on so long an acquaintance, every little 
foible from one constantly in his company ; and, 
during the whole of my acquaintance with Mr. 
Allston, I never heard him speak a peevish word, 
or utter a single inconsiderate sentence; he is a 
man of whom I cannot speak sufficiently, and 
my love for him I can only compare to that love 
which ought. to subsist between brothers. He 
is a man for whose genius I have the highest 
veneration, for whose principles I have the great- 
est respect, and for whose amiable properties I 
shave an increasing love. ... You must recollect, 
when you tell friends that I am studying in 
England, that Iam a pupil of Mr. Allston, and 
not Mr. West; they will not long ask you who 
Mr. Allston is; he will very soon astonish the 








TROUBLE. 65 


world. It is said by the greatest connoisseurs 
in England, who have seen some of Mr. Allston’s 
works, that he is destined to revive the art of 
painting in all its splendor, and that no age ever 
boasted of so great a genius. It might be 
deemed invidious were I to make public another 
opinion of the first men in this country: it is, 
that Mr. Allston will almost as far surpass Mr. 
West as Mr. West has other artists, and this is 
saying a great deal, considering the very high 
standing which Mr. West enjoys at present.” 
During his abode in England Allston con- 
formed to the custom of the country in regard 
to late dinners, finding it favorable also to his 
undisturbed studies. He dispensed with a mid- 
day meal, and worked incessantly, often amid 
great mental excitement, until his health was 
shattered by these unwonted fasts and toils. A 
serious and chronic derangement of the diges- 
tive organs ensued, from which he never wholly 
recovered ; and his pure and enthusiastic spirit 
was henceforth chained to an inadequate physi- 
cal constitution. His susceptible and highly ner- 
vous temperament was from this time hampered 
by material troubles, compelling him to long and 


66 ALLSTON. 


frequent cessations from labor, and resulting in 
occasional inequalities of execution. But the rest 
given to the pencil was attended with an increased 
activity of the mind, while new themes for illu- 
mination were earnestly pondered, and new writ- 
ings were prepared. 

Allston’s health became so seriously affected 
by his unremitting labors, that, after several 
months of great suffering, he was obliged to seek 
a revival by a change of air. He had an uncle 
living as the American Consul at Bristol, the city 
of Coleridge, Southey, Chatterton, Sydney Smith, 
and Robert Hall; and he hastened towards the 
adjacent watering-place of Clifton, in the hope 
that the medicinal waters might aid in his recov- 
ery. But when he reached Salt Hill, twenty-two 
miles from London, the malady grew so vio- 
lent that he was unable to proceed farther, and 
was confined to a sick-bed for many days, ten- 
derly cared for by his devoted wife. Morse and 
Leslie attended him in the journey, and the 
former hastened back to London, and brought 
Coleridge thence to Salt Hill. Leslie narrates 
how he occupied the same bed with the great poet, 
who spent the hours, when he dared to leave All- 





“4AN AMERICAN BOOK.” 67 


ston’s room, in a fascinated perusal of “ Knick- 
erbocker’s History of New York.” Once he 
left the sick-chamber at midnight, and took up 
“Knickerbocker’s History of New York” (“only 
an American book”), and was found at ten 
o’clock the next forenoon still buried in its pages, 
with lights burning and shutters closed, unaware 
of the lapse of time. Coleridge discharged the 
utmost duties of friendship in a manner which 
was surprising in a person of such constitutional 
indolence, and thus manifested how ardent was 
his love for his artist-friend. As soon as Allston 
was able to be moved they carried him to Clifton, 
the picturesque and far-viewing western suburb 
of Brighton, whither Coleridge soon followed 
him. King, the eminent surgeon, Miss Edge- 
worth’s brother-in-law, was then at Clifton; and 
Coleridge had induced Southey to write to him 
about the artist’s case. His ministrations were so 
effectual that Allston ever afterwards attributed 
his escape from death to him (under Providence). 
But the process of recovery was slow and gradual, 
and the artist was subjected to great annoyance 
from his uncle, Vanderhorst, a kind-hearted and 
generous man, but gouty and crotchety, and filled 


68 ALLISTON. 


with an inveterate animosity against doctors, 
“Don't let one of those rascals enter your door,” 
he cried. “ Follow my advice ; live well, and trust 
to the air of Clifton. You see how well I am and 
how healthy all my family are, and this is because 
we never let a doct6ér come near us.” Vander- 
horst or some member of his family called fre- 
quently on their suffering kinsman, and Dr. King 
came twice daily, so that Leslie and Coleridge 
were forced to watch unceasingly lest the eccen- 
tric uncle should meet and assail the surgeon. 
King’s visits were kept secret, and Vanderhorst 
took the whole credit of his nephew’s recovery. 
Probably no small part of the artist’s improve- 
ment in health was due to the inspiration of the 
beautiful scenery of Clifton and the lower Avon 
River, beheld in the company of the cultured 
and sensitive Coleridge and Southey. While en- 
joying such society, amid these charming sur- 
roundings, Allston solaced the long weeks of 
his convalescence by composing several poems, 
which were published in London soon afterwards, 
in a duodecimo volume, entitled “The Sylphs of 
the Seasons.” This volume was republished in 
Boston, in 1813, under the care of Profcssor Wil- 





‘THE DEAD MAN REVIVED, 69 


lard and Mr. Edmund T. Dana. An English 
author says that Allston also published in Lon- 
don a volume of “ Hints to Young Practitioners 


9 


in the Study of Landscape Painting.” Nagler 
and Blanc both speak of this now forgotten 
book. 

As soon as Allston had passed from under the 
stress of disease, though still an invalid, he re- 
turned to London, and finished the picture of 
‘The Dead Man Revived by Elisha’s Bones.’ 
This great work was exhibited at the British 
Institution in 1814, where it obtained the first 
prize of two hundred guineas; and was after- 
wards purchased by the Pennsylvania Academy 
of Fine Arts for $3,500. The master wrote to 
the friend who had managed the sale: “As 
necessary and acceptable as the money is to 
me, I assure you I think more of the honor con- 
ferred by the Academy becoming purchasers 
of my work.” The composition is founded on 
2 Judges xill. 20-21: “And the bands of the 
Moabites invaded the land at the coming in of 
the year. And it came to pass as they were 
burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band 
of men, and they cast the man into the sepulchre 


7° ALLSTON. 


of Elisha; and when the man was let down, 
and, touched the bones of Elisha, he revived.” 
While the master was working on ‘The Dead 
Man Revived’ he devoted four months to the 
painting of a landscape, which he afterwards | 
sent to Philadelphia, to be sold for two hun- 
dred guineas. He also painted a ‘ Mother and 
Child,’ which was at first intended to repre- 
‘sent the Madonna, but, failing to reach the art- 
ist’s ideal, received a less pretentious title. He 
thought this one of his best pictures, and pre- 
sented it to his friend McMurtrie, of Philadel- 
phia. This gentleman also had some correspond- 
ence with Allston about a picture of ‘ Christ 
Healing in the Temple,’ which the artist had 
designed and partly executed, but desisted from 
when convinced of the inadequacy of the compo- 
sition. He wrote: “I may here observe that 
the universal failure of all painters, ancient and 
modern, in their attempts to give even a tolera- 
ble idea of the Saviour, has now determined me 
never to attempt it. Besides, I think His char- 
acter too holy and sacred to be attempted by the 
pencil.” Again, he said, when asked why he 
had not painted Christ: “I have not done so, 
\ 


YOHN MARTIN. 71 


because of my convictions concerning the na- 
ture, the mission, and the character of the 
Saviour. ‘These exalt Him so far beyond such 
an apprehension as could alone enable me to 
communicate any idea of Him I may strive to 
reach, that I should fail if I attempted it. I 
could not make Him a study for art.” 

During this year, 1814, Leslie introduced All- 
ston to John Martin, “the painter of architectural 
dreams,” whose works were filled with poetic 
fascination, terrible and brilliant weirdness, 
and startling imagination. The American had 
strongly desired to know Martin, ever since he 
had seen his picture of ‘Sadak Seeking the 
Waters of Oblivion.’ Says Martin: “ Thus, 
twenty years ago, commenced a friendship which 
caused me deeply to regret Allston’s departure 
for his native country; for I have rarely met a 
man whose cultivated and refined taste, com- 
bined with a mild yet enthusiastic temper and 
honorable mind, more excited my admiration 
and esteem.” | 

When the master was painting ‘The Dead 
Man Revived,’ he was visited by West, who 
exclaimed, “ Why, sir, this reminds me of the 


72 ALLSTON. 


fifteenth century ; you have been studying in the 
highest school of art. There are eyes in this 
country that will be able to see so much excel- 
lence.” He also noticed a head which Allston 
had modelled in clay for one of his figures, and, 
taking it for an antique, asked whose it was. 
Upon finding by whom it had been modelled, he 
carefully examined it, and expressed his opinion 
that no sculptor in England could do as well. 
Leslie says: ‘‘ I never was more delighted in my 
life than when I heard this praise coming from 
Mr. West, and so perfectly agreeing with my own 
opinion of Allston. He has been in high spirits 
ever since, and his picture has advanced amaz- 
ingly rapid for these two or three days.” 

West was delighted with Allston’s ‘ Diana,’ 
which was exhibited- at the British Gallery in 
1814, and said to his son, “There, there, why, 
there is nobody who does anything like that.” 
Young West answered, ‘‘It looks like a bit of 
Titian.” ‘O, yes,” exclaimed the venerable art- 
ist, ‘that’s Titian’s flesh, that’s Titian’s flesh.” 
He commended the landscape, composition, 
drawing, and coloring; and advised his gifted 


compatriot to follow it with others of similar 





WEST’S PORTRAIT. 73 


small size and delicate finish. About this same 
time Allston painted the head of West, for the 
portrait which is now in the Boston Museum of 
Fine Arts. Inness says: “ How real seems that 
portrait alongside of Stuart’s pink fancy of 
_ Washington! and what a piece of bosh, by con- 
trast, is the ‘ Portrait of Benjamin West, Esq.’ ’ 
(I believe he was n’t ‘Sir’d’), ‘President of the 
Royal Academy,’ by Sir Thomas Lawrence.” 

In the autumn of 1814 Allston dwelt at Bris- 
tol, and was busily engaged in portrait-painting, 
meeting with indifferent success. Leslie wrote 
deploring the absence of the master’s family and 
Morse from London, and saying that it made him 
feel “as I used to when away from my mother 
and sisters.” Allston’s uncle was the only pur- 
chaser of his pictures, so that Morse said that 
he might have starved for all the Bristol people 
did to help him. But among the few portraits 
which he had executed he ranked those of Cole- 
ridge and Dr. King, painted at this time, as the 
best. Wordsworth said of the former, “It is the 
only likeness that ever gave me any pleasure.” 
It was painted for Mr. Josiah Wade, and is now 
in the British National Portrait Gallery. Allston 


74 ALLSTON. 


himself wrote: “So far as I can judge of my own 
production, the likeness is a true one, but it is 
Coleridge in repose; and, though not unstirred 
by the perpetual ground-swell of his ever-working 
intellect, and shadowing forth something of the 
deep philosopher, it is not Coleridge in his high- 
est mood, the poetic state. When in that state, 


no face I ever saw was like to his; it seemed 


almost spirit made visible, without a shadow of . 


the visible upon it. Could I then have fixed it 
upon canvas! But it was beyond the reach of 
my art.” 

It is said that at this same period Allston 
painted a portrait of Robert Southey, another of 
the great lake poets. He also executed two or 
three fancy compositions, but no trace of them 
can now be found. Another portrait of this period 
represented Mrs. King, the surgeon’s wife, who 
was of the Edgeworth family, so famous in the 
literature of that day. 

Southey developed a warm intimacy with All- 
ston, and frequently conversed with him about 
artistic and literary subjects. ‘‘Have you many 
old books in your country?” said he, one day. 
“Tf not, I could not live there.” He told Collins 





AMERICA TO GREAT BRITAIN. 75 


that some of Allston’s poems were among “ the 
finest productions of modern times.” Coleridge 
once said to Thomas Campbell that our master 
had “poetic and artistic genius unsurpassed by 
any man of his age.” He also called him “ the 
first genius produced by the Western world.” 
Allston’s poem, “ America to Great Britain,” 
which Charles Sumner calls “one of the choicest 
lyrics in the language,” received the honor of 
being incorporated by Coleridge in his volume 


’ 


of “Sibylline Leaves,” which was published in 
1817. Our own Longfellow now possesses the 
author’s copy of this book, enriched by numerous 
marginal notes in the handwriting of the great 
lake poet, among which we find, alongside of 
the “America to Great Britain,” the following sen- 
tence, in Coleridge’s delicate chirography: “ By 
Washington Allston, a painter born to renew the 
fifteenth century.” Coleridge was very fond of 
hearing the artist’s weird and wonderful stories 
of the supernatural, and in after years frequently 
repeated one of them, whose scene was laid at 
Harvard College. In the text of the “ Sibylline 
Leaves” Coleridge printed, as a note to the 
_ “America to Great Britain”: “ This poem, written 


76 ALESTON. 


by an American gentleman, a valued and dear 
friend, I communicate to the reader for its moral 
no less than its patriotic spirit.” 

Allston now returned to London, and took a 
house on Tinney Street, which he furnished and 
fitted for his home. But it was ordained that 
his cherished dreams of domestic joys in the 
new domicile should fail of realization, and in 
their place should arise one of the profoundest 
sorrows of his life. Mrs. Allston had been inces- 
sant in her care over her husband’s sickness, and 
returned to London with impaired health. After 
entering the new house her illness became very 
serious, and she died within two or three days. 
Leslie says: “She was never tired of talking of 
‘that little saint, William,’ as she called him. ‘The 
very clay of which the Channings were formed 
seemed to have religion in its composition. Mrs. 
Allston told me that her brother, when a child, 
used to turn a chair into a pulpit, and preach 
little sermons to the other children of the family. 
I saw Channing often during his short stay in 
London, — and to see him was to love him. At 
his request I accompanied him to the burying- 
ground of St. Pancras Chapel, to show him his 


~—— al 


eee ee 


i ll i ti tll i tel 


aN 





MRS. ALLSTON’S DEATH. 77 


sister’s grave.” The only persons present at her 
funeral were her husband, Leslie, Morse, and 
John Howard Payne. The bereaved painter 
wrote to a friend, “The death of my wife left me 
nothing but my art, which then seemed to me as 
nothing.” 

Morse wrote home, saying: “ Mrs. Allston, the 
wife of our beloved friend, died last evening, and 
the event overwhelmed us all in the deepest » 
sorrow. As for Mr. Allston, for several hours 
after the death of his wife he was almost bereft 
of his reason. Mr. Leslie and I are applying 
our whole attention to him, and we have so far 
succeeded as to see him more composed.” 

When Mrs. Allston had passed away, the pleas- 
ant prospects of the future life in the new house 
seemed to have died with her, and the grieving 
artist soon abandoned a place whose memories 
were so painful. He went into lodgings in Buck- 
ingham Place, Fitzroy Square, where Leslie and 
Morse were living, in the centre of the artists’ 
quarter of London. Suffering under extreme de- 
pression of spirits, his long and sleepless nights 
were haunted by horrid thoughts, and diabolical 
imprecations forced themselves into his mind. 


78 ALLSTON. 


Sincerely religious as he was, he was profoundly 
distressed by these visitations, and desired Leslie 
to consult Coleridge about his case. The great 
poet was found walking bareheaded in the garden 
at Highgate, and told Leslie: “ Allston should 
say to himself, ‘ Mothing is me but my will? 
These thoughts, therefore, that force themselves 
on my mind, are no part of me, and there can be 
no guilt in them.’ If he will make a strong 
effort to become indifferent to their recurrence, 
they will either cease, or cease to trouble him.” 
Much more he said, in sympathy with the sen- 
sitive and suffering artist; and his messages 
were blessed in the peace which their sugges- 
tions procured for the unfortunate Allston. He 
also sought for consolation from a higher source, 
and was confirmed as a member of the Episco- 
pal Church. 

In 1815 Morse wrote of his master: “I never 
felt so low-spirited as when he was ill. [I often 
thought, if he should be taken away at this time 
what an irreparable loss it would be, not only 
to me, but to America and to the world. Oh! 
he is an angel on earth. I cannot love him 
too much. Excuse my warmth; I never can 
speak of Mr. Allston but in raptures.” 





GHOST-STORIES. 79 


Washington Irving visited him frequently, and 
wrote: “ Allston was dejected in spirits from the 
loss of his wife, but I thought a dash of melan- 
choly had increased the amiable and winning 
graces of his character. I used to pass long 
evenings with him and Leslie ; indeed Allston, 
if any one would keep him company, would sit 
up until cock-crowing, and it was hard to break 
away from the charms of his conversation. He 
was an admirable story-teller; for a ghost-story, 
none could surpass him. He acted the story as 
well as told it.” 

During the summer of 1816 Allston painted 
a picture of ‘Rebecca at the Well,’ which the 
London artists called one of his best works. 
He sent it to his friend, Mr. Van Schaick, of 
New York. The exhibition of this year con- 
tained his ‘Morning in Italy’ ; and the preced- 
ing one had been: adorned with the ‘ Donna 
Mencia in the Robbers’ Cave’ (G7i/ Blas, Book 
I. Chap. X.). 

The scrupulous and sensitive conscience of the 
master is illustrated by an incident occurring 
at this time. He was in urgent need of money, 
and had recently found a purchaser for one of 


80 ALLSTON. 


his pictures. But when he thought the matter 
over, alone, at evening, he concluded that the 
_ subject of the painting was such that it might 
some time have an immoral effect on some per- | 
verted imagination. He immediately went to 
his patron’s house and paid back the money, 
after which he took the picture home and de- 
stroyed it. 

In September, 1817, Allston went to Paris, wa 
Brighton and Dieppe, in company with Leslie 
and William Collins. They all made studies in 
the Louvre, and visited the houses of the chief 
artists of the city. Gérard was the only one who 
received them in person, and even he did not 
show them his pictures. Leslie has described 
the keen appreciation with which the party visit- 
ed Notre Dame and the Louvre. Allston stayed 
in the French capital six weeks, and then re- 
turned to London. 

Of the trip to Paris Collins wrote: “ During 
this visit I had of course the very best opportu- 
nities of becoming acquainted with my friend’s 
real character, which, in every new view I took 
of it, became more satisfactory. ‘The sweetness 
and subdued cheerfulness of his temper, under 


“URIZE IN THE: SUN.’ 8I 


the various little inconveniences of our journey, 
was much to be admired; and his great reverence 
for sacred things, and the entire purity and in- 
nocence of his conversation (coupled, as it was, 
with power of intellect and imagination), I never 
saw surpassed. Blessed be God, these qualities, 
these gifts, were effectual to the pulling down of 
many strongholds and vain imaginations on my 
part. How then can I be too grateful to Heaven 
for my acquaintance with one to whom, and to 
whose example, I owe so much? It is a source 
of great comfort to me to know, that although we 
were for so many years separated by the Atlantic, 
he yet sometimes spoke of me; and especially 
that so short a time before his death he had me 
in mind.” 

In December he sent his regards to Irving, in 
Leslie’s letter, wherein allusions are made to the 
illustrations to “The Sketch Book” and “ Knick- 
erbocker’s History,’ which Allston and Leslie 
had contracted to design. The former furnished 
but one of the eleven illustrations, a representa- 
tion of Wouter Van Twiller deciding a lawsuit. 
At this time Allston had just finished ‘The 
Angel Uriel in the Sun,’ from which he omitted 


82 ALLSTON. 


the positive colors of red, blue, and yellow, and 
yet produced a picture of rich and glowing tone. 
The angel’s figure is colossal, though foreshortened 
to a height of but nine feet; and his air and 
attitude are very noble and heroic. The British 
Institution gave the artist a prize of one hundred 
and fifty guineas, on account of the picture, 
which Leslie held as equal to the best works of | 
Paul Veronese. 

It is said that one day he heard a knock at the 
studio door, and arose to admit the visitor, who 
desired to know where his picture of ‘ Uriel’ 
could be found. Allston brought out the glow- 
ing canvas from a dusty corner of the studio, 
and, when urged to state his price, declined, say- 
ing that he had often done so, and found none 
willing to pay it. “Would £ 400 be an adequate 
sum?” asked the visitor; and when the amazed 
artist said that that was more than he had ever 
asked, he gladly took the picture at that price. 
This generous patron was the Marquis of Staf- 
ford, who was ever afterward a warm friend and 
protector of Allston. 

Under the inspiration of his artistic surround- 


ings in London, Allston worked with marvellous 





FLAXMAN AND ABERNETHY. 83 


rapidity. The ‘Uriel’ was finished in six weeks, 
and he said, “I painted it at a heat,—for the 
Royal Academy Exhibition.” The ‘Elijah’ was 
done in only three weeks. The ‘Belshazzar,’ 
the source of most of the master’s failure, was 
sketched out before April, 1817. During the 
same year he painted the ‘Clytie,’ and at the 
Exhibition of 1818 he was represented by a 
Shakespearian scene, ‘Hermia and Helena.’ 
Another work of this period was the ‘ Falstaff 
and his Ragged Recruits, a picture about four 
feet long and containing a dozen figures, most of 
which were portraits of actors then on the Eng- 
lish stage. 

Flaxman once said to Allston, upon being 
complimented on his designs from Homer and 
Dante, “I will now show you the sources of many 
of them”; and proceeded to lay before him a 
great variety of sketches from nature, which he 
had made in the streets and houses of London. 
Flaxman lived in the next house to that of All- 
ston, on Fitzroy Square, and was very intimate 
with his genial neighbor. 

While Abernethy was at the summit of his 
popularity Allston called on him to be treated 


84 ALLSTON. 


for a pain in his thigh, and was met at the door 
by a coarse-looking and shaggy-headed person, 
whom he took for a servant. “Come in, come 
in, mon,” said this uncouth fellow, with a harsh 
Scotch accent ; to whom the amazed artist an- 
swered, “But Mr. Abernethy may be engaged ; 
perhaps I had better call another time.” “Come 
in, mon, I say,” rejoined the person at the door ; 
and pulling the visitor in, planted himself against 
the closed door, and added, “ Now tell me what 
is your business with Mr. Abernethy, —I am 
Mr. Abernethy.” Allston said, “I have come to 
consult you about an affection —” “ What the 
de’il hae I to do with your affections?” cried the © 
blunt Scot; and the gentle patient timidly re- 
joined, “ Perhaps, Mr. Abernethy, you are en- 
gaged at present, and I had better call again.” 
“De il the bit, mon, de’il the bit, — come in, 
come in,” said the great surgeon ; and led All- 
ston and the attendant Morse into his office, 
where he examined and prescribed for the case 
with marvellous tenderness and skill. 

After returning from Paris, Allston completed 
his picture of ‘Jacob’s Dream,’ wherein a vast 
‘multitude of angels is seen, and the ladder to 


PETWORTH. 8s 


heaven appears as “immeasurable flights of 
steps, with platform above platform, rising and 
extending into space immeasurable.” Lord 
Egremont purchased this picture, and told Leslie 
that the figures therein reminded him more of 
Raphael than anything else he had seen by any 
modern artist. He was as much pleased with 
the artist as with his pictures, and gave him an 
urgent invitation to partake of the noble hospi- 
talities of Petworth Castle, whose gates were ever 
open wide to men of genius. He visited the 
castle, and perhaps met Turner and Chantrey or 
some other of the artists who were such frequent 
guests there. He became an ardent admirer of 
Turner, whom he characterized as the greatest 
painter since the days of Claude. 

In 1836 Freeman and Leslie visited Petworth, 
and found the ‘Jacob’s Dream’ in the garrets 
of the mansion ; while in the Earl’s library were 
two of Allston’s daintiest cabinet-pictures. Les- 
lie did not class the ‘Jacob’s Dream’ with the 
best works of its author, though Tom Taylor says 
that it was his masterpiece. The Earl said of 
‘The Repose in Egypt,’ that it was “ transcend- 


ent in every artistic quality.” 


86 ALLSTON: 


In March, 1819, Coleridge wrote to Leslie, 
inviting him to visit his house, and closing thus : 
“Are we not always delighted to see you? Now, 
too, more than ever, since, in addition to your- 
self, you are all we have of Allston.” During 
the latter part of his sojourn in England, the 
artist had frequently visited the poet in the se- 
cluded asylum at Highgate, near London, where 
he was endeavoring, under Dr. Gilman’s care, 
to free himself from the opium-habit. Here he 
used to meet Charles Lamb and other friends, 
and join in their intellectual conversations. 

When Coleridge’s tragedy of ‘‘ Remorse” was 


first played, its author occupied a box near the 


stage, with Allston, Morse, Leslie, King, and 


Charles Lamb as his guests. In April, 1818, the 
master dined with Lamb, Haydon, and H. C. 
Robinson, and the latter said of him: “Allston 
has a mild manner, a soft voice, and a senti- 
mental air with him, — not at all Yankeeish ; 
but his conversation does not indicate the talent 
displayed in his paintings.” 

The Earl of Egremont had introduced himself 
to Allston, and became one of his most munifi- 
cent patrons. Before he left England he said 


EVENINGS OF STORIES. 87 


‘to him, “I hear you are going to America, 
—I am sorry for it. Well, if you do not meet 
with the encouragement which you deserve, in 
your own country, we shall all be very glad to 
see you back again.” 

It has been said that when Allston was in 
London he always ceased to work after he had 
made a popular sensation with some great pic- 
ture, and the public heard no more of him for 
long periods, during which he rested himself by 
social recreation. Instead of following up the 
effect of a success, and keeping his name be- 
fore the people, he gave himself up to long 
evenings of story-telling, at which he was un- 
rivalled, and richly entertained his many friends 
with his delightful anecdotes and original tales. 
He was not accustomed to retire early, and his 
rest was eked out by sleeping until late in the 
morning. ‘These intervals of dolce far niente were 
not the outgrowth of sluggishness or coldness 
towards his art, but were necessitated by his 
physical limitations and the lassitude following 
extraordinary efforts. Towards evening his 
spirits usually brightened, and until midnight 
flowed free and sparkling. 


88 ALLSTON. 


Men of taste and admirers of Allston’s style 
have lamented his return to America, believing 
that if he had remained abroad, enjoying the 
stimulus of the sympathy and fellowship of the 
great British artists and literati, he might have 
advanced to a lofty position among the Euro- 
pean disciples of art, and awakened still further 
the genial interest and patronage of the insular 
nobility. But Irving was one of those who ad- 
vised him to return home, arguing that it was 
better to be the foremost artist in America than 
one among the many masters in Europe. 

Late in July, 1818, Irving wrote to Leslie: “I 
shall try hard to see Allston before he sails.... 
I regret exceedingly that he goes to America, 
now that his prospects are opening SO promis- 
ingly in this country; but perhaps it is all for 
the best. His ‘Jacob’s Dream’ was a particular 
favorite of mine. I have gazed on it again and 
again, and the more I gazed the more I was 
delighted with it. I believe if I was a painter, 
I could at this moment take. a pencil and delin- 
eate the whole, with the attitude and expression 
of every figure.” 

Irving once wrote: “The road to fame and for- 


IRVING'S LAMENT. 89 


tune was now open to Allston; he had but to 
remain in England, and follow up the signal im- 
pression he had made. Unfortunately, previous 
to this recent success, he had been disheartened 
by domestic affliction, and by the uncertainty of 
his pecuniary prospects, and had made arrange- 
ments to return to America. I arrived in Lon- 
don a few days before his departure, full of 
literary schemes, and delighted with the idea 
of our pursuing our several arts in fellowship. 
It was a sad blow to me to have this day-dream 
again dispelled. I urged him to remain and 
complete his grand painting of ‘ Belshazzar’s 
Feast,’ the study of which gave promise of the 
highest kind of excellence. Some of the best 
patrons of the art were equally urgent. He was 
not to be persuaded, and I saw him depart with 
still deeper and more painful regret than I had 
parted with him in our youthful days at Rome. 
I think our separation was a loss to both of us, 
—to me a grievous one. The companionship 
of such a man is invaluable. For his own part, 
had he remained in England for a few years 
longer, surrounded by everything to encourage 
and stimulate him, I have no doubt he would 


go ALLSTON. 


have been at the head of his art. He appeared 
to me to possess more than any contemporary 
the spirit of the old masters ; and his merits were 
becoming widely appreciated.” 

Irving had such a high opinion of his friend’s 
critical ability that he read to him the manu- 
script of “The Sketch-Book,” to draw forth his 
comments thereon. The author felt a doubt as 
to whether he had better publish the Legend of 
Sleepy Hollow, but Allston conferred a lasting 
favor on American literature by persuading him 
to do so. 

Says Allston: “ Next to my own country, 
I love England, the land of my ancestors. I 
should indeed be ungrateful if I did not love a 
country from which I have never received other 
than kindness ; in which, even during the late 
war, I was never made to feel that I was a for- 
eigner. By the English artists, among whom I 
number some of my most valued friends, I was 
uniformly treated with openness and liberality. 
Out of the art, too, I found many fast and gener- 
ous friends. 

“Leslie, Irving, and Sir Thomas Lawrence 


were the last persons I shook hands with on 


HOMEWARD BOUND. QI 


leaving London. Irving and Leslie had accom- 
panied me to the stage, and Sir ‘Thomas, who was 
passing by on his morning ride, kindly stopped 
to offer me his good wishes. It is pleasant to 
have the last interview with those whom we wish 
to remember associated with kind feelings.” 

The homeward-bound artist crossed the ocean 
in the ship Gan, and met with much tempestu- 
ous weather. During the height of one of the 
worst gales of the season he remained on deck, 
engaged in argument with the captain as to 
whether two-thirds of the ship’s keel was not 
thrown clear of the sea at one time, and main- 
taining an unperturbed demeanor amid the ter- 
rors of the storm. He sketched the Galen as 
he supposed that she appeared in the heaviest 


seas. 


Q2 ALLSTON. 


CHAPLER..1¥. 


The Studio at Boston. — Chester Harding. — Academic Honors. 
— Horatio Greenough. — Washington Irving. —De Veaux. — 
Morse. 


Hear Allston’s own sentences: “A homesick- 
ness, which (in spite of some of the best and 
kindest friends, and every encouragement that I 
could wish as an artist) I could not overcome, 
brought me back to my own country in 1818, 
We made Boston Harbor on a clear evening in 
October. It was an evening toremember! The 
wind fell and left our ship almost stationary on 
a long low swell, as smooth as glass, and undu- 
lating under one of our gorgeous autumnal skies 
like a prairie of amber. ‘The moon looked down 
upon us like a living thing, as if to bid us welcome, 
and the fanciful thought is still in my memory 
that she broke her image on the water to make 
partners for a dance of fire-flies, — and they ad 
dance, if I ever saw dancing. Another thought 
recurs: that I had returned to a mighty empire, — 


BOSTON IN 1818. 93 


that I was in the very waters which the gallant 
Constitution had first broken, whose building I 
saw while at college, and whose ‘slaughter-breath- 
ing brass,’ to use a quotation from worthy Cotton 
Mather’s Magnalia, du¢ now ‘ grew hot and spoke’ 
her name among the nations.” 

At that time Boston was a compact little city, of 
about 40,000 inhabitants, with a lucrative trade to 
the East Indies and other remote shores, and en- 
joying a dignified leisure which was undisturbed 
by the intense commercial activities of to-day. 
There were no such wide chasms between the 
different divisions of society as now exist, for 
there were no princely families on the one side, 
nor paupers on the other. Many of the aristo- 
crats had expatriated themselves when the royal 
armies abandoned the city; and most of those 
who remained were slowly and peacefully laying 
the foundations of future social dynasties. 

Allston’s studio was established in the large 
barn on John Prince’s estate, near the northwest 
corner of High Street and Pearl Street, and in 
close proximity to the houses of the Quincys, 
Perkinses, and Parsonses. His rooms were on 
Sister Street, which ran out of Federal Street 


94 ALLSTON. 


near Dr. Channing’s church, and he got his 
meals at the celebrated restaurant of Rouillard, 
the successor of Monsieur Julien, at the corner 
of Milk and Congress Streets. 

On Chester Harding’s return from Europe he 
settled in Boston, and says, in his “ Egotistogra- 
phy”: “I had now become intimately acquainted 
with Mr. Allston. His habits were peculiar in 
many respects. He lived alone, dining at six 
o’clock, and sitting up far into the night. He 
breakfasted at eleven or twelve. He usually 
spent three or four evenings, or rather nights, at 
my house every week ; and I greatly enjoyed his 
conversation, which was of the most polished 
and refined order, and always instructive. I 
sometimes called at his studio. It was an old 
barn, very large, and as cheerless as any anchorite 
could desire. He never had it swept, and the 
accumulation of the dust of many years was an 
inch deep. You could see a track, leading 
through it to some remote corner of the room, 
as plainly as in new-fallen snow. He saw few 
friends in his room; lived almost in solitude, 
with only his own great thoughts to sustain him.” 

Early in 1819 Allston wrote to Morse, saying: 


THE ROYAL ACADEMY. 95 


“Something like encouragement seems to ap- 
pear in our horizon ; and if we have any talents, 
we owe something to our country when she is 
disposed to foster them.” At the same time he 
received an official communication from the sec- 
retary of the Royal Academy, stating that he 
had been elected an associate of that body, at- 
tended with congratulatory letters from Leslie 
and Collins. He was justly proud of having 
obtained this signal honor without canvassing, 
or begging for votes. A few years later, on the 
occurrence of a vacancy, he would have been 
appointed an Academician, but that the laws 
of the Royal Academy forbade that honor to 
persons who were not residents of the United 
Kingdom. 

In November he received another letter from 
Collins, congratulating him on his election to 
the Academy, and sending him kind messages 
from Wordsworth, Southey, Coleridge, and Sir 
George Beaumont. In his answer, Allston ex- 
cuses a delay, on the plea of his well-known 
habits of procrastination, and says: “I assure 
you I have written you at least twenty letters 
in my head, whilst I have been smoking my 


96 ALLSTON. 


usual evening cigar.” He thus expresses his 
gratification at the election.to the Academy: 
‘To my countrymen here, who value highly all 
foreign honors, it seems to have given almost 
as much pleasure as if it had been bestowed 
on the country; it must, therefore, be no small 
aid to my professional interests.” He adds 
that there is no probability of his returning to 
England, since he had already met with most 
liberal patronage in Boston, and hoped to found 
there an English school of art. He believed 
there was a quicker appreciation of art among 
the Americans than in any other country. 
About this time Allston was one of the leaders 
in the movement which resulted in a statue of 
Washington, by Chantrey, being placed in the 
Massachusetts State House ; and was frequently 
in communication with the jovial old sculptor, 
who had been his friend while in England. 
Allston’s position on the vexed question of 
his day was clearly defined on his return from 
_ Europe, when he found that his step father had 
recently died, having bequeathed him a young 
negro woman named Diana. Instead of selling” 


her in the Charleston slave-market, for such a 


SOUTHERN ALLSTONS. | 97 


sum as would have delighted an impecunious 
artist, he immediately emancipated her, and gave 
her the legal free papers. 

Allston had a violent dislike to President 
Jackson, and once declined to paint a battle in 
which he commanded, in terms almost of anger. 
Governor Hamilton of South Carolina induced 
Governor Everett of Massachusetts to attempt 
his good offices in softening the obdurate painter, 
but in vain. 7 

The Allstons of South Carolina frequently 
visited New England, and during one of these 
sojourns the Hon. John A. Allston persuaded 
Morse, his kinsman’s protégé, to go to Charles- 
ton and open a studio. There the young artist 
met with great success, both socially and pro- 
fessionally, and remained five months, painting 
sixty-two portraits. John A. Allston owned a 
fine picture-gallery, and had Morse portray his 
lovely daughter for it, draped in white, ordering 
the addition of “the most superb landscape you 
are capable of designing.” ‘The artist afterwards 
presented his patron with the great painting 
of ‘The Judgment of Jupiter.’ After Morse’s 
marriage he returned to Charleston, where he 


98 ALLSTON. 


acted as the agent of his old master in dispos- 
ing of certain pictures, and kept up an inter- 
esting correspondence with him. 

Governor R. F. W. Allston several times asked 
his famous kinsman to paint him a picture, but 
the only answer would be, “‘ Robert, I must paint 
for money,’—as if the idea of taking money 
from a relative was quite out of the reach of 
possibility. 

In July, 1821, Allston became acquainted with 
Thomas Sully, the eminent portrait-painter, who 
spent several months in Boston, making a highly 
finished copy of Mr. Wiggin’s picture of ‘The 
Capuchin Chapel,’ painted by Granet. The 
master was also a friend of Gilbert Stuart, then 
nearly seventy years old, and in 1828 wrote an 
eloquent and appreciative eulogy upon him, for 
the Dazly Advertiser. 

When Dr. Channing went to Europe, in 1822, 
he carried a letter of introduction from Allston 
to Coleridge, and made such an impression upon 
the latter that he spoke of the great Boston divine 
as “a philosopher in both the possible renderings 
of the word, having the love of wisdom and the 
wisdom of love.” This celebrated phrase he 


GREENOUGH. 99 


used in a letter to Allston, telling of his walks 
and talks with Channing. 

Horatio Greenough entered Harvard Univer- 
sity in 1821, and was soon made acquainted with 
Allston, who became his master and intimate 
companion. The cravings of the enthusiastic 
youth for a life of noble achievement in rt, 
sometime coldly treated by practical friends, were 
revived and stimulated in the presence of the lofty 
soul and earnest purpose of the great painter, and 
a marvellous sympathy grew up between the two. 
Greenough dwelt with Edmund Dana, and met 
Allston there every Saturday, when he was ac- 
customed to visit his kinsman. Dana was en- 
dowed with fine critical taste and a profound 
knowledge of art and literature; and the young 
student gladly hailed the approach of every 
seventh day, when he could listen to the inspir- 
ing conversation of such serene and benevolent 
sages. Greenough’s mind was as elevated and 
as finely tempered as his form was heroic and 
symmetrical ; and Allston, rejoicing to find so 
genial and respectful an auditor, impressed on 
his susceptible spirit a lofty ideal of art, a feel- 
ing of the dignity of his chosen profession, cour- 


I10o ALLSTON. 


age to meet its disciplining trials, and faith in 
the ultimate reward. These frequent meetings 
between the spiritual and prophet-lke artist and 
the radiant young disciple were heavy with 
destiny for the latter, who wrote, many years 
later: “ Allston was to me a father in what con- 
cerned my progress of every kind. He taught 
me first how to discriminate, how to think, how 
to feel. Before I knew him, I felt strongly, but 
blindly ; and if I should never pass mediocrity, 
I should attribute it to my absence from him, so 
adapted did he seem to kindle and enlighten me, 
making me no longer myself, but, as it were, an 
emanation from his own soul.” During his last 
visit to America the great sculptor said, with emo- 
tion; that the only thought which cast a shadow 
over his heart was that Allston was dead. 
Percival’s poem on “The Mind,” delivered 
before the Connecticut Phi Beta Kappa in 1825, 
closed with a lament that America should permit 
so great an artist as Allston to be forced to earn 
his living in painting small sentimental pictures, 
while his greater capabilities were undeveloped. 
In 1827 Allston received a favorable introduc- 


tion to a wider circle of admirers, on displaying 


DE VEAUX. IOI 


several of his pictures in the exhibition at the 
Boston Athenzum. Among these were the 
Jeremiah, Miriam, Florimel, and Valentine. He 
was now entering on what many admirers call 
his philosophical system of painting, to which he 
devoted the last sixteen years of his life. 

In 1828 William Collins induced Allston to 
act as godfather by proxy to his second son, 
who was named William Allston Collins ; and 
many years later Collins wrote to Dana: “I 
desire no better thing for him than that he may 
follow the example of his namesake, both as a 
painter and as a man.” Mr. W. A. Collins is 
now celebrated as an accomplished author. 

In 1829 Allston was asked to take as a pupil 
young De Veaux, of South Carolina, but de- 
clined, with the statement that he was not accus- 
tomed to receive students. He advised that his 
young compatriot should be placed with Chester 
Harding ; but Inman and Sully had the honor of 
teaching “the gifted, the generous, the lost De 
Veaux.” Two years before his short life closed, 
the art-student wrote, from Italy: “ SuLLy is our 
REYNOLDS, and ALLSTON our WONDER,—I would 
not give him for less than Michael Angelo! He 
is as fine as all the old masters together.” 


102 ALTSTOGON; 


Washington Irving visited Allston in 1830, 
and found him “in the gray evening of life, ap- 
parently much retired from the world.” He 
characterized him as “a man whose memory I 
hold in reverence and affection, as one of the 
purest, noblest, and most intellectual beings that 
ever honored me with his friendship.” Mr. Dix, 
the last visitor at Sunnyside, a week before Irv- 
ing’s death, in 1859, chanced to speak of All- 
ston, and thus describes the effect of that sweetly 
remembered name: “It set his soul all glowing 
with tender, affectionate enthusiasm. ‘To hear 
the great painter so praised by the great writer, 
with a voice tremulous partly with infirmity but 
more with emotion, was something to keep as 
surely as if every word had been engraven with 
the point of a diamond.” 

George W. Flagg was one of Allston’s best- 
beloved pupils, and one of whom he prophesied : 
“That boy, if I mistake not, will do great things 
one of these days. A great thing in his favor 
is, that his heart is as good as his head.’ The 
youth was also a relative of his master, since 
Allston’s mother was his own grandmother. He 
was born at New Haven, but passed his boyhood 


GEORGE W. FLAGG. 103 


at Charleston, S. C., where he developed his 
artistic tastes at a very early age, and made a 
remarkable portrait of Bishop England when he 
was but fourteen years old. He remained nearly 
two years under the care of the great master, 
enjoying his affectionate instructions and lofty 
conversation, and learning not only the technic 
of his art but also of its noble treasures and 
vast possibilities. The teacher and pupil were 
frequently seen walking together, the former im- 
pressing high truths on his disciple’s mind by 
doctrine, analogy, and incident. The religious 
tendencies and conscientious aims of art were 
developed in every way, with the necessity for 
aspiration and industry ; and the youth was in- 
structed in the characters of the interesting men 
and beautiful women of Europe. One of All- 
ston’s sweetest poems was written for his kins- 
man, designing to show him that the elevated 
mind could find no satisfaction in mere pleasure, 
sought for itself alone. He also restrained him 
from inconsiderate criticism and the thoughtless 
dogmatism of an unripened mind. 

Flagg designed ‘A Boy listening to a Ghost- 
Story’ and ‘A Young Greek’ while under All- 


104 ee) QLESTON. 


ston’s care ; and at length painted ‘ Jacob and 
Rachel at the Well,’ whose merit was acknowl- 
edged by the master in the words, “ Now you 
may consider yourself an artist.” Afterwards 
Flagg executed noteworthy pictures in Boston, 
New Haven, and London ; but was prevented by 
ill health from gaining the eminence which he 
might otherwise have attained. | 

Flagg was with Allston. when he was painting 
the ‘ Spalatro,’ and testifies to the rapt attention 
with which the artist regarded his work. He 
frequently showed his nervous sympathy for the 
characters he was portraying, by starting back 
from the canvas and assuming the attitude of 
the figure he was designing. This manner of 
instinctive imitation was a constant habit of the 
artist’s, and illustrated his keen perception of 
the sentiment under treatment, and his thorough 
engrossment, physical and mental, in his work. 

Another of Allston’s pupils was Jared B. Flagg, 
George’s brother, whose artistic career lasted 
nearly twenty years, or until 1854, when he took 
orders in the Episcopal Church. He was a 
member of the National Academy, and executed 
several highly praised ideal works, besides many 


‘ELIFAH IN THE DESERT’ 105 


- portraits. Nor have his later pastoral duties 
prevented him from making numerous excellent 
pictures, and taking an active interest in the Yale 
College Art Gallery. 

Richard M. Staigg was another young artist 
who was enriched by Allston’s counsel and en- 
couragement, which he won by his beautiful 
miniature of Mrs. Amory, of Newport. Staigg 
was brought up at Newport, where he was ac- 
quainted with the relatives of Stuart and Mal- 
bone ; and studied the rich scale of colors on 
the palette of the former, and the exquisite min- 
lature, ‘The Hours,’ of the latter. Allston’s 
instruction was highly beneficial to his young 
‘disciple, who became eminent not only as a 
portrait-painter but also as a designer of vigor- 
ous and refined ideal pictures. One of his most 
delicate and memorable miniatures portrays the 
grand face of Allston ; and two others, represent- 
ing Webster and Everett, have been exquisitely 
engraved. | 

The ‘ Elijah in the Desert’ is a large picture, 
perhaps 6 X 4 feet in size, which Allston painted 
in London and brought home with him. In this 
great work the chief feature is a sublime and 


106 ALESTON. 


illimitable desert-landscape, covered with rocks. 
and sand, bounded by black mountains, and 
overhung with lowering clouds. The scene is 
dark and melancholy, but impressive in its calm- 
ness and silence. Elijah is a minor figure in the 
picture, and is hidden away among the grotesque 
and distorted roots of an enormous banyan-tree, 
the only tree in the whole wide landscape, and 
‘that dead and leafless. Hereunder flows the 
brook Cherith ; and the ravens fly down with 
food for the outcast prophet. It has been said 
that this picture would have been far greater if 
Elijah and his whimsical tree had been omitted, 
leaving only the vast and solitary expanse of the 
desert. 

This composition was painted with colors 
ground in milk, then varnished with copal, and 
retouched in oil-colors. It remained at the 
house of Allston’s friend, Isaac P. Davis, until 
it was purchased (for $1,500) by an English 
tourist, the Hon. Mr. Labouchere, M. P., who 
carried it home. In 1870 Mrs. S. Hooper, of 
Boston, repurchased the ‘Elijah’ (for $ 4,000), 
and gave it to the Boston Museum of Fine 
Arts. 


‘FYBREMIAH? 107 


The ‘Jeremiah’ is a large and splendidly col- 
ored picture, 8 x 5 feet in size, and is founded on 
the thirty-sixth chapter of the Prophecy of Jere- 
miah. ‘There are but two figures, those of the 
Prophet and Baruch his scribe. The former is 
sitting with his head majestically upraised, and 
lifts his right arm toward heaven, with the two 
middle fingers of the hand bent down and the 
others pointing upward, as if arrested suddenly 
and unconsciously. The head is the noblest 
and the expression the loftiest that Allston ever 
executed, nor could we imagine a more worthy 
conception as issuing from even Angelo’s brain. 
The unsandalled right foot of the Prophet is one 
of the most noteworthy parts of the picture; and 
the temple architecture in the background, and 
the partly draped stone jar in the foreground, 
are executed with rare skill, the former in its 
aerial perspective and the latter in its Flemish 
minuteness of finish. Baruch’s graceful figure 
is back to the spectator, sitting in the shadow, 
and bending over his tablets as if enthusiasti- 
cally recording the Prophet’s words. 

The ‘Jeremiah’ has been likened to Beet- 
heven’s Fifth Symphony, or to a rich sunset, 


: 


108 ALLSTON. 


in the harmony with which its manifold tints 
are blended into a delicious unity. Some critics 
esteem it as the greatest painting by Allston’s 
hand. It was retained for fifty years by Miss 
Gibbs, the Newport lady for whom it was painted, 
and in 1866 was exposed for sale in the Red- 
wood Library. Two years later it was pur- 
chased by Professor S. F. B. Morse, for $7,000, 
and presented to Yale College. 

In 1830 the master married again, and his 
second wife was a cousin of the first, being, 
like her, a granddaughter of William Ellery, the 
signer of the Declaration of Independence. 
Her father was Francis Dana, the Chief Justice 
of Massachusetts, who married Miss Elizabeth 
Ellery; and one of her brothers was Richard 
H. Dana, the poet. She was forty-six years old 
when Allston married her, and survived him 


until the year 1862. 


‘THE VALENTINE,”’ 10g 


CHAPTER-V. 


A Group of Pictures.— The Valentine, Rosalie, Beatrice, Spala- 


tro, etc. — The ‘ Belshazzar’s Feast.’ 


Mr. ALLSTON painted between forty and fifty 
pictures in Europe, of which by far the greater 
number have disappeared. The choicest of his 
works after returning to America are now pre- 
served in Boston, some in the Museum of Fine 
Arts, and others in the houses of some of the 
elder families. A few of these are hereinafter 
described. 

‘The Valentine’ is a simply colored and com- 
posed picture, in which a lady is seen reading a 
letter, which she holds with both hands. It has 
been carefully restored, without impairing the 
merit of the coloring and its charming natural- 
ness. It almost breathes, in the warm life which 
the skilfully mingled hues simulate, and the deli- 
cate gradations of the shadows. Ware says: “I 
have never been able to invent the terms that 


would sufficiently express my admiration of that 


IIo ALLSTON. 


picture... . The att can go no further, noroas 
I believe has it ever gone any further.” The 
model for this picture was Mrs. Russell, a sister 
of the first Mrs. Allston, a lady whom the artist 
greatly admired in view of her beautiful charac- 
ter, and whom he represented in several other 
pictures. 

The ‘Rosalie’ is a graceful and thoughtful 
woman, sitting in the calm repose of deep contem- 
plation, and twirling the golden chain that falls 
from her neck, with an exquisitely delicate hand. 
Ware has called this “one of the most graceful 
conceptions that artist was ever able to copy 
upon canvas.” George W. Flagg attests that 
the head of this noble picture was finished in 
three hours, a marvellous celerity for such a slow 
and careful artist. She appears to be listening 
to music, passionate, yet peaceful, as if in the 
words of the poet-painter’s song of ‘ Rosalie’: 

‘‘O, pour upon my soul again 
That sad, unearthly strain, 
That seems from other worlds to plain; 
Thus falling, falling from afar, 
As if some melancholy star 


Had mingled with her light her sighs, 
And dropped them from the skies! 


THE ‘BEATRICE.’ III 


The rapid rise in the price of Allston’s pictures 
after his death is seen in the fact that not long 
after that sad event $5,000 was offered for the 
‘Rosalie,’ and was refused. 

The ‘ Beatrice’ is not unlike the ‘ Rosalie’ in 
its calm and contemplative air, though its repose 
is of a deeper and more permanent character. 
The face is beautiful, being still and self-pos- 
sessed ; and is English rather than Italian in its 
powerful and transfigured sentiment. Her hair 
and eyes are soft and brown; her complexion is 
suffused with tender rosy light; and a strange 
charm emanates from the radiant face, though it 
is devoid of physical beauty. Mrs. Jameson calls 
this picture “ most lovely”; Mr. Jarves sees it as 
“weak and pale”; and Dr. Holmes finds in it 
“the simple ease of Raphael.” 

‘The Flight of Florimel’ is based on an inci- 
dent in Spenser’s “ Faerie Queen,” showing a 
dimly lighted forest, without gloom or glare, 
through which, in the foreground, Florimel is fly- 
ing on a white horse. Her golden raiment and 
fair hair form brilliant lights ; and her face, back- 
ward turned towards the pursuer, is filled with 
fright and consternation. This exquisite picture 


112 ALLSTON. 


was painted for the artist’s friend, Loammi Bald- 
win. 

‘The Triumphal Song of Miriam on the De- 
struction of Pharaoh and his Hosts in the Red 
Sea’ is a three-quarter-length figure, with one 
hand holding the timbrel and the other thrown 
upward. ‘The picture is filled with exultant life 
and uplifting joy, and the dramatic effect is 
powerful in its inspiration. The ‘Miriam’ was 
originally bought by David Sears, for $ 1,000, 
and is now owned by his son, Frederick R. 
Sears. Holmes called its coloring Titianesque, 
and preferred it to any of the master’s other pic- 
tures, holding it as a link between his scriptural 
and ideal compositions. 

‘The Spanish Girl,’ one of Allston’s most 
famous works, is notable chiefly for the felici- 
tous art of the landscape background, a dreamy 
summer scene in the pastoral hill-country of 
Spain, full of suggestions to the imagination and 
the soul. The fair lady is sitting on the bank 
of a lake, which is as calm as a mill-pond, and 
the warm-tinted Sierra Morena rises beyond. 
The motive of the scene was set forth by the 


artist in a sweet poem, wherein Inez awaits by 


‘THE EVENING HYMN 113 


the lake the return of her Isidore from the 
wars. 

‘The Death of King John,’ though unfinished, 
was Allston’s masterpiece in the expression of 
emotion in faces, vary.ng from the utter misery 
of the conscience-stricken sovereign to the deep 
compassion of the people about his_ bedside. 
The design is true and simpie, and the compo- 
sition is complete. 

‘The Evening Hymn’ is a rich and Claude- 
like picture, in which a ruined Italian castle, by 
the water-side, is seen in the warm sunset light. 
On the moss-grown causeway a maiden is sitting, 
guitar in hand, with her pure and impassioned 
face upturned to heaven, as if the hymn was 
already trembling on her lips. 

‘The Roman Lady’ is represented as reading 
a book which she holds before her. The face 
is hard and inanimate in its gravity and absorp- 
tion ; but the hands are masterpieces of art, and 
display the most splendid and natural coloring. 

The ‘Amy Robsart’ was painted for John A. 
Lowell. It has been suggested that this work 
illustrates the proverbial inequality of genius, 

since it shows inferiority both in coloring and 


114 ALLSTON. 


in design. On the other hand, Sumner, who 
saw it while fresh and new, speaks of its beau- 
tiful golden hair, “‘and that sweet look of feeling 
which you find in all Allston’s pictures, particu- 
larly of women, —gualem decet esse sororum.” 

‘The Sisters’ is a picture of two young girls, 
in three-quarter size, Titianesque in color, and 
with the attitude of one of the figures taken 
from Titian’s portrait of his daughter, as Allston 
frankly stated in the Catalogue. 

‘The Tuscan Girl’ is a fair maiden in a forest, 
wrapped in meditation, and is described in All- 
ston’s poem, beginning, — 

= How pleasant and how sad the turning tide 
Of human life, where side by side 
The child and youth begin to glide 
Along the vale of years ; 
The pure twin-being for a little space, 
With lightsome heart, and yet a graver face, 
Too young for woe, but not for tears!” 

The ‘Lorenzo and Jessica’ is one of the 
master’s smallest pictures, and one of his most 
perfect, in the Giorgionesque manner. ‘Therein 
two lovers are seen sitting side by side, in the 
hushed and cloudless twilight, gazing together 
towards the glowing west. Through the deep and 


LANDSCAPES. I15 


now sunken tones of the picture the Italian villa 
in the background scarcely appears. About the 
time that this picture was finished the artist was 
visited by Charles Fraser, his old Carolina friend, 
and Robert C. Winthrop, to whom he repeated 
certain verses which he had composed about the 
subject on which he had been engaged. 

The ‘Italian Landscape’ is a broad and brill- 
iant composition, replete with music and _ per- 
fume, and overspread with sweet sunshine and 
poetic repose. It is a far-expanding plain, with a 
round-arched bridge crossing a still river, a rugged 
mountain rising majestically in the distance, and 
a tall stone-pine in the foreground. The ‘Amer- 
ican Scenery’ is a smaller landscape, wrapped 
in the haze of autumn, with a lonely horseman 
riding through the rural solitudes. Other poetic 
phases of nature which Allston illustrated were 
‘A Sunrise on the Mediterranean,’ ‘ After Sun- 
set,’ ‘Moonlight,’ ‘A Forest Scene,’ and ‘A 
Mountain Landscape.’ 

The ‘Swiss Landscape’ is a grand and shad- 
owy scene, where dark forms appear upon a dim 
and solitary pathway, near a lake whose waters 
reflect the stiff pines on the banks and the piles 


116 ALLSTON, 


of rugged rocks above. Over all is spread the 
clear and crystalline atmosphere of the Alps, 
with stately mountain-forms looming into the 
sky. 

The picture of ‘Spalatro’s Vision of the Bloody 
Hand’ is founded on a scene in Mrs. Radcliffe’s 
novel of “ The Italian,” when the monk Schedoni 
and the assassin Spalatro are advancing through 
a dark corridor to murder Elena, and Spalatro is 
suddenly horrified by the apparition of a beckon- 
ing bloody hand. He is seen half crouching, as 
if frozen with intense supernatural fear, and his 
eyes are dilated with horror; while the undis- 
mayed priest stands erect and haughty, holding 
the lamp above his head, and looking forward 
into the gloom with clear and steady eye. The 
picture was but 23x13 feet in size, yet it may 
well be doubted if any other painting whatever of 
equal smallness was capable of producing such 
powerful emotions. Allston justly regarded this 
as one of his best works ; and nowhere else did 
he show forth so clearly his intense realization of 
the power of conscience, a feeling which always 
swayed him with marvellous effect. The picture 


was burned in 1873, in a mansion on the Hudson. 


ENGRAVED DESIGNS. 117 


The ‘Spalatro’ was painted for Mr. Ball of 
South Carolina, who chose this from a number 
of subjects proposed by the artist. Most of the 
years 1830 and 1831 were spent on this picture, 
which afterwards for a time graced the Scollay 
mansion, in Boston. The friends of the master 
proposed to have it exhibited, for his benefit, 
since the amount paid for it had been very inad- 
equate to the labor. But he refused to consent 
to such an exhibition, remarking also: “It was 
said of Paul Veronese that when he painied for 
convents he was sometimes paid half in money 
and half in masses. In like manner I am some- 
times content to be paid half in money and part 
in praises.” 

One of the most attractive and accessible 
souvenirs of Allston is the series of certain of 
his designs, published in Boston soon after his 
death. This collection includes twenty plates, 
the largest of which is 20 X 30 inches, from 
outlines in umber and hasty sketches in chalk. 
They are full of idealism and refinement, purity 
and loftiness of conception; and show a pro- 
found knowledge of the human form, and the 
beauty and grace of its best estate. The en- 


118 ALLSTON. 


gravings were skilfully made by the Cheney 
brothers, and the broad chalk lines were im- 
itated by blending delicate parallel lines. There 

are six plates from ‘ Michael Setting the Heav- | 
enly Watch,’ and four (of angels) from ‘ Jacob’s 
Dream.’ Others represent ‘ Uriel in the Sun,’ 
‘A Sibyl,” *Heliodorus, Prometheus, =“ihe 
Prodigal Son,’ ‘Dido and Atneas,’ and a ship 
in a gale at sea. The latter was probably 
taken from the sketch of which Mrs. Jameson 
said, “It was a sea-piece,—a_ thunder-storm 
retiring, and a frigate bending to the gale; 
it was merely a sketch in white chalk upon a 
red ground, and about five feet high, as nearly as 
I can recollect, — not even the dead coloring was 
laid on; I never saw such an effect produced by 
such a vehicle, and had not mine own eyes seen 
it, I could not have conceived or believed it pos- 
sible. There was absolute motion in the clouds 
and waves, —all the poetry, all the tumult of the 
tempest were there!— and, I repeat, it was a 
sketch in white chalk,— not even a shadow!” 
Another design in the book was the ‘ Fairies on 
the Seashore,’ a graceful fancy, with a column 


of fairies rising from the sea-washed strand into 


‘BELSHAZZAR’S. FEASTY’ II9g 


the bright sky. Mr. W. H. Prescott sent a copy 
of this work to Lord Morpeth, praising it highly, 
and quoting Allston’s poetry freely. 

The ‘ Belshazzar’s Feast’ took form in the 
artist’s mind as early as April, 1817, as appears 
in his letter of that date to Irving: “One of 
these subjects (and the most important) is the 
large picture, — the prophet Daniel interpreting 
the handwriting on the wall before Belshazzar. 
I have made a highly finished sketch of it. I 
think the composition the best I have ever made. 
It contains a multitude of figures, and (if I may 
be allowed to say so) they are without confusion. 
Don’t you think it a fine subject? I know not 
any that so happily unites the magnificent and 
the awful. A mighty sovereign, surrounded by 
his whole court, intoxicated with his own state, 
in the midst of his revelry palsied in a moment, 
under the spell of a preternatural hand suddenly 
tracing his doom on the wall before him; his 
powerless limbs, like a wounded spider’s, shrunk 
up to his body, while his heart, compressed to a 
point, is only kept from vanishing by the terrific 
suspense that animates it during the interpreta- 
tion of his mysterious sentence. His less guilty 


120 ALLSTON. 


but scarcely less agitated queen, the panic-struck 
courtiers and concubines, the splendid and de- 
serted banquet-table, the half-arrogant, half-as- 
tounded magicians, the holy vessels of the temple 
(shining as it were in triumph through the 
gloom), and the calm, solemn contrast of the 
prophet, standing, like an animated pillar, in 
the midst, breathing forth the oracular destruc- 
tion of the empire!” 

The sketch alluded to is now in the possession 
of Mr. Richard H. Dana, who also has the sketch 
of ‘Christ Healing the Sick,’ a powerful one of the 
head of Jeremiah, a portrait of Coleridge, a large 
landscape, and several other unfinished works of 
his famous kinsman. 

The great painting of ‘Belshazzar’s Feast’ 
was begun in England, before 1818, on a canvas 
16 X 12 feet in size. When the artist returned 
to America, he said of it: “ All the laborious 
part is over, but there still remains about six or 
eight months’ more work to do to it.” He little 
dreamed that the twenty-five remaining years of 
his life would not avail to finish it, and that 
sixty years later it would be hung in the Boston 
Museum of Fine Arts, still incomplete, though 


‘BELSHAZZARS FEAST, I21I 


glorious. This great composition was valued at 
$ 10,000, held by several wealthy patrons in ten 
shares, of which a certain percentage was paid in 
advance. It must have been some unpleasant 
experiences in this matter which led him to ad- 
vise Sully, “O, do not undertake anything that 
cannot be accomplished by your own means.” 
Immediately on his return from England All- 
ston unrolled the almost finished picture, and 
submitted it to the honest severity of Stuart’s 
criticism. That great painter pointed out cer- 
tain radical errors in the work, which its author 
acknowledged, and had perhaps foreseen ; and 
Allston thereupon began the immense task of 
reconstructing the entire design. He was obliged 
to devote many weeks to changing the perspec- 
tive, during which he made more than twenty 
thousand chalk-lines in circles and arcs, to bring 
the amended figures into correct drawing. The 
operations of laying in the ground-colors and 
finishing them with the glazing colors followed, 
involving more labor than the painting of a new 
picture on a fresh canvas would have cost, be- 
sides the terrible mental strain and distress which 
necessarily ensued. Stuart told Dr. Channing, 


122 ALLSTON. 


at the beginning, that it would never be finished, 
because of ‘‘ the rapid growth of the artist’s mind, 
so that the work of this month or year was felt 
to be imperfect the next, under the better knowl- 
edge of more time, and must be done over again, 
or greatly altered, and, therefore, could never 
come to an end.” But this opinion seems un- 
warranted, and had the great master’s life been 
spared a little longer he would doubtless have 
linked the name of the Assyrian king with the 
noblest achievement of American art. Charles 
Sumner thought that if Allston’s last illness had 
been a lingering one, he would have ordered the 
destruction of the unfinished picture. 

Martin’s famous picture of ‘ Belshazzar’s Feast’ 
was exhibited in London in 1821, and Allston 
wrote to its author that he “would not mind a 
walk of ten miles, over a quickset hedge, before 
breakfast, to see it.” Martin said: “This is 
something, from a bad walker and a worse riser.” 
The subject had been suggested to him by All- 
ston, who held a conception of its proper compo- 
sition totally different from his own, and the two 
artists had a prolonged discussion on the ques- 
tion. Allston suggested that Martin’s conception 


‘BELSHAZZAR’S FEAST, 123 


was well set forth in a prize poem at Cambridge, 
written by T. S. Hughes, which the English paint- 
er afterwards read, and then determined to paint 
the picture. Leslie and other friends endeavored 
to dissuade him from his proposed treatment of 
the subject, but in vain. It is said that he bor- 
rowed Allston’s idea of making the light in the 
picture proceed from the miraculous inscription, 
and that Allston abandoned his own version upon 
hearing of this plagiarism. 

In 1823 Allston showed to Chester Harding 
and Jonathan Mason the great picture in his 
studio. It was all finished then, except the sin- 
gle figure of Daniel, and Allston told his visitors 
to see Leslie when they reached England, and 
describe the work to him, but to allow no one 
else to hear of it. 

_ When Harding went to Washington, in the win- 
ter of 1828, he gave Allston the use of his spacious 
studio, wherein to finish the ‘Belshazzar’s Feast’: 
“He painted all winter, instead, on a landscape ; 
and when I came home, I found he had wiped 
out his winter’s work, saying it was not worthy of 
him. He smoked incessantly, became nervous, 
and was haunted by fears that his great picture 


124 ALLSTON. 


would not come up to the standard of his high 
reputation. One day he went to his friend Lo- 
ammi Baldwin, and said, ‘I have to-day blotted 
out my four years’ work on my ‘ Handwriting on 
the Wall.’” 

The delay in completing this immense compo- 
sition’ was a circumstance which sorely troubled 
the artist for years, and called forth many annoy- 
ing inquiries from the public, if not from the sub- 
scribers to the picture. But while thus vexed 
by worldly cares and responsibilities, he was un- 
able to consecrate his time to the great work, 
and therefore it remained unfinished. He wrote: 
“Indeed, I have a/ready bestowed upon it as much 
mental and manual labor as, under another state 
of mind, would have completed several such pic- 
tures. But to go into the subject of all the obsta- 
cles and the hindrances upon my spirit would 
hardly be consistent with delicacy and _ self- 
respect.” The public had formed exaggerated 
ideas of the new picture, in view of the artist’s 
well-known genius and prolonged seclusion, and 
Allston was alarmed by the general prediction that 
the ‘Belshazzar’s Feast’ was destined to be one 


of the most brilliant triumphs of American art. 


—--, 


‘BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST? 125 


Some of his friends had stood as models and 
others had heard him describe his conception 
of the proper treatment of the theme; and from 
these glowing accounts had been scattered abroad, 
and the public was in an expectant attitude. 
The dreary consciousness of pecuniary embar- 
rassments, the lack of proper models and other 
properties, and the delicate health of the artist 
combined to persuade him, from time to time, 
that he had undertaken a task too great for 
his means and strength, and caused him to put 
it aside in discouragement and dissatisfaction. 
Thus, frequently abandoned and as often re- 
newed, the work went on slowly for a quarter of 
a century, and was finally left unfinished, a mere 
fragment, yet the delight of later generations. 
He was at work on this picture less than seven 
hours before he died. 

The amount of labor freely lavished on the ‘ Bel- 
shazzar’s Feast’ was enormous, and for years the 
slight and feeble figure of the artist moved up the 
ladders and along the stagings before the great can- 
vas, laden with the house-painter’s brushes which 
put on the priming coats, and then going through 
the prolonged toils of finishing the work in its 


126 ALLSTON. 


details. Most of this should have been done by 
pupils, but of such there were none, and the task 
was devolved all too heavily, im summer’s heat 
and winter’s frost, on one weary pair of hands. 
The architecture and objects of still-life in the 
picture are worked up with infinite labor, and 
wasted many golden days. The unnatural and 
elongated human figures which still remain un- 
changed and unfinished show the direction of 
the artist’s labors, and their exceeding complexity 
and magnitude. 

Perhaps he was led into the pursuit of concep- 
tions alien to his nature by the overmastering 
power with which the scene of the fifth chapter 
of Daniel seized and excited him, in its artistic 
potentialities. It may be, also, that he yielded 
to the mania of British artists, in his time, for 
painting huge canvases in the “ grand style,” as 
West, Barry, and others had done. But the vast 
works of Tintoretto were as far removed from 
his manifestation of genius as the achievements 
of the skilful stone-carver are from those of the 
lapidary, —and for this great and stately, but 
incomplete and unsatisfactory, ruin of art and 
imagination, America has had to pay too dearly, 


‘BELSHAZZAR’S FEAST,’ 127 


in the loss of many a delicate and highly polished 
jewel of painting which might otherwise have 
been hers. | 

In this great composition Allston attempted to 
accomplish something to which his genius was 
unsuited, though it was fully equal to it. Imagi- 
nation, mental force, religious fervor, — all these 
he had in sufficient degree, but his preference 
was for another kind of subject, and his monastic 
spirit chose to pour itself more richly into simpler 
subjects. In life he disliked crowds and any 
manner of bustling confusion, and so also in art 
he chose quiet scenes, of simple elements, single 
figures, or solitary landscapes, and into these he 
put himself with abundant faith and sympathy. 
How different was the conception of his vast 
illumination of the Assyrian drama! 

The scene represented is that sublime event 
which is described in the fifth chapter of Daniel, 
when “ Belshazzar the king made a great feast to 
a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before 
the thousand”; and while he and his princes 
and concubines are drinking from the golden 
vessels plundered from the temple of Jehovah 
at Jerusalem, a hand appears, writing on the 


128 ALLSTON. 


wall of the palace. The terrified king and his 
soothsayers cannot read the inscription, and 
Daniel, “in whom is the spirit of the holy gods,” 
is summoned, and interprets it as a prediction 
of the speedy fall of the kingdom. The scene 
shows the great palace-hall, with the enthroned 
king, and the queen and her attendants, the 
foreground being occupied by Daniel and the 
astrologers, the middle distance by the feasters 
around their table, and the remote background 
by the vast interior of a temple, with the idol 
thereof under a blazing circle of lights, and peo- 
ple hurrying up the broad steps in terror. 

The king’s face is devoid of obvious and cari- 
catured terror, but his whole form seems to be 
cramped and frozen by unspeakable awe, — at 
least, so the artist strove to represent it. The 
form of Daniel is good, but the face is not en- 
dowed with striking power, — nor does it repre- 
sent Daniel Webster, as the gossips of those days 
said that it would. The minor groups show some 
faces convulsed with terror and others absolutely 
unmoved and apparently without fear, concern- 
ing which it is easier to believe that the artist’s 
design is not yet fully understood than that he 


‘BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST,’ 129 


has laboriously portrayed an absurdity, or avoided 
a theatrical vulgarity by introducing an abnormal 
apathy. The grandest face in the picture is that 
of the queen, full of regal beauty and pride, 
scornful and contemptuous, towering in heroic 
self-dependence beside the sinking king, yet 
holding her attendant’s hand for support. Her 
costume is magnificent, and was perfectly and 
delicately finished. 

The architecture of the palace-hall is marked 
by rows of small columns, which Ware calls a 
fatal blemish on the picture, as producing an 
effect of littleness and meanness quite inadmis- 
sible in Assyrian buildings, and foreign to gran- 
deur and sublimity. ‘The dimly seen and tower- 
ing pillars of the idol’s temple, with its countless 
stairs, and the mysterious god, wrapped in a won- 
derful atmosphere of distance, are set in the 
strongest contrast, and exhibit a triumphant 
excellence. 

The grand and crowning excellence of the 
picture is in its wealth of gorgeous Venetian 
coloring, pure and harmonious, and in all parts 
resplendent. The most notable points, in this 


regard, are the figure of the queen, Daniel’s 


130 ALLSTON. 


head, the malignant astrologer who looks out of 
the picture, and the group of Jews in the centre. 
The latter, though in the shadow, is finished with 
the most exquisite delicacy and perfection, and 
appears almost self-luminous. The harmony cf 
the entire composition seems the product of a 
single day of inspired labor, when the great 
thought at once took faultless form, rather than 
the toilsome and oft-abandoned drudgery of 
twenty-five years. 

An eminent and competent critic has said that 
if this picture had been finished “it would have 
gone near to eclipse all that had gone before it,” 
claiming for it not only sublimity of conception 
and richness of coloring, but also a rare minute- 
ness of finish throughout the work, “which, 
though so large, completed, would have had at 
once all the truth and delicacy of a cabinet gem, 
and the breadth and grandeur which belong to 
colossal subjects ; which is just the truth of Na- 
ture, whose works, though ever so large, are 
never finished with any the less minuteness and 
perfection.” 


CAMBRIDGEPORT. 131 


CHRAPIER VI. 


The Studio at Cambridgeport. — Lowell’s Pen-Sketch. — Mrs. 
Jameson. — The Exhibition. — Eminent Friends. — The Death 
of Allston. 

Earty in 1831 Allston established himself in 

a new painting-room, which he had built at Cam- 

bridgeport, in which village he also made his 

home. His former studio in Boston was con- 
verted into a livery stable, and after that event 
he had painted in a small chamber. The ‘Bel- 
shazzar’s Feast’ had been rolled up and put 
away in a packing-case for three years, for the 
artist had constant need of money, and must 
needs paint small pictures to earn it. But he 
said, at this time, that if he ever became free 
from his debts and the pressing demands of 
daily existence, he should devote the remainder 
of his life to large paintings. In a letter to 

McMurtrie he wrote: “I have been married 

about a year, and this village is now my home. 

It is but two miles from Boston, where I can be 


132 ALLSTON. : 


at any time, by means of an hourly stage, in 
twenty minutes. I am in better health, and cer- 
tainly in better spirits, than I have been these 
ten years.” 

He chose to settle in Cambridgeport on ac- 
count of its close vicinity both to Boston and 
to Harvard College, within easy walk of his 
friends at either place. He needed a large 
quantity of land for the new house and studio, 
and could get it in that village at slight expense. 
As to the unattractiveness of Cambridgeport as 
a place of residence he cared but little, since he 
was not affected by outside surroundings. In 
all Cambridge there were but 6,000 inhabitants 
at this time. The greater part of what is now 
Cambridgeport was then (in the native dialect) 
a huckleberry pastur, Woods were not wanting 
on its outskirts, of pine and oak and maple, and 
the rarer tupelo with downward limbs. Allston’s 
house was at the corner of Magazine and Au- 
burn Streets ; and the studio was hard by, in the 
rear of the Baptist Church of the village, hav- 
ing but one door, and that on the side away 
from the street, opening on a path which led 
across the garden to the artist’s house. There 


RELIGION. 133 


were several small trees and bits of shrubbery 
between the two buildings, and the studio door 
was enarched with climbing vines. The painting- 
room had but a single window, which opened 
toward the garden, and was very long and 
high. The children of the vicinity had many 
a ghostly theory about this lone studio of New 
England. Within, the room was surrounded by 
cabinets, whose doors bore many a rude sketch 
and inscription. 

Mrs. Allston’s means were not small, and 
hence the dreamy artist was free from the deso- 
lating apprehensions of want and poverty. 

The Shepard Congregational Society was 
formed in 1829, when the old First Parish in 
Cambridge became Unitarian. In 1830-31 the 
new society built a meeting-house, partly from 
plans furnished by Allston, who used to lead out 
his friends and visitors at evening to a point 
about a third of a mile southeast of the building, 
and bid them to admire it, repeating the lines : — 


“Tf thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright, 
Go visit it by the pale moonlight.” 


After leaving Boston, Allston usually attended 
this church, with which his wife and her family 


134 ALLSTON. 


were closely connected, finding there as strong a 
defence of Trinitarianism as in his own Episcopal 
Church. On saints’ days and other high eccle- 
siastical festivals he used to attend service at St. 
Paul’s, in Boston. He was fond of reading the 
Bible and the works of the old Anglican divines, 
and once wrote a long and able essay on Chris- 
tianity as supplying an inherent want of human 
nature. | 
Let us read James Russell Lowell’s exquisite 
pen-sketch of our Allston: “So refined was his 
whole appearance, so fastidiously neat his ap- 
parel, — but with a neatness that seemed less 
the result of care and plan than a something as 
proper to the man as whiteness to the lily, — that 
you would have at once classed him with those 
individuals, rarer than great captains and almost 
as rare as great poets, whom Nature sends into 
the world to fill the arduous office of Gentleman. 
... A nimbus of hair, fine as an infant’s, and early 
white, showing refinement of organization and 
the predominance of the spiritual over the physi- 
cal, undulated and floated around a face that 
seemed like pale flame, and over which the flit- 


ting shades of expression chased each other, 


LOWELLV’S DESCRIPTION. 135 


fugitive and gleaming as waves upon a field of 
rye. It was a countenance that, without any 
beauty of feature, was very beautiful. I have 
said that it looked like pale flame, and can find 
no other words for the impression it gave. Here 
was a man all soul, whose body seemed a lump 
of finest clay, whose service was to feed with 
magic oils, rare and fragrant, that wavering fire 
which hovered over it. You, who are an adept 
in such matters, would have detected in the eyes 
that artist-look which seems to see pictures ever 
in the air, and which, if it fall on you, makes you 
feel as if all the world were a gallery, and you 
yourself the rather indifferent Portrait of a Gen- 
tleman hung therein. 

“Allston carried thither [to Italy] a nature 
open on the southern side, and brought it back 
so steeped in rich Italian sunshine that the 
east winds (whether physical or intellectual) of 
Boston and the dusts of Cambridgeport assailed 
itin vain. To that bare wooden studio one might 
go to breathe Venetian air, and, better yet, the 
very spirit wherein the elder brothers of Art 
labored, etherealized by metaphysical speculation 
and sublimed by religious fervor. The beautiful 


136 ALLSTON. 


old man! Here was genius with no volcanic ex- 
plosions (the mechanical result of vulgar gunpow- 
der often), but lovely as a Lapland night ; here 
was fame, not sought after nor worn in any cheap 
French fashion as a ribbon at the button-hole, 
but so gentle, so retiring, that it seemed no more 
than an armored and emboldened modesty ; here 
was ambition, undebased by rivalry and incapa- 
ble of the sidelong look; and all these massed 
and harmonized together into a purity and depth 
of character, into a Zone, which made the daily 
life of the man the greatest masterpiece of the 
artist.” 

Allston’s life at Cambridgeport was one of 
great seclusion, as became a scholar, an artist, 
and an invalid. He had a small but choice 
circle of friends, including his kindred and a few 
intellectual companions, and frequently welcomed 
artists and travellers to his studio. But the hos- 
pitalities of the great families of Boston and 
Cambridge, though freely offered to him, were 
generally declined, since he preferred to devote 
his life to nobler pursuits than those of mere 
social pleasure. His high religious concentra- 


tion and reverent consecration to the true and 


MRS. JAMESON. 137 


the beautiful attracted to him the noblest minds 
of New England, as they had previously drawn 
the gentle Malbone, the philosophic Coleridge, 
and the cultured Irving. He won the admiration 
and homage of the choicest men and women of 
his age and race; and passed through life with 
an earnest love for his fellows and a fearless 
faith in God. 

Mrs. Jameson visited Allston in Cambridge- 
port, and said that the New Englanders “tri- 
umphed in the astonishment and admiration of a 
stranger who started to find Venetian sentiment, 
grandeur, and color in the works of a Boston 
painter, buried out of sight, almost out of mind, 
for five-and-twenty years, —a whole generation of 
European amateurs. . . . He was an admirable 
narrator, his good stories being often invented for 
the occasion. The vivacity of his conceptions, and 
the glowing language in which he could clothe 
them, rendered his conversation inexpressibly 
delightful and exciting. I remember, after an 
evening spent with him, returning home very, 
very late (I think it was near three in the morn- — 
ing), with the feelings of one who had been mag- 
netized.” Such was still his custom, to spend a 


138. ALLSTON. 


great part of the night in conversation, and then 
to rise very late. Miss Clarke once informed him 
that she was engaged in painting a sunrise scene, 
and rose early in order to see the sun when it 
passed above the horizon. “How does it look ?” 
asked he, in perfect good faith. 

In 1835 Allston’s time was so thoroughly en- 
gaged that he was obliged to decline several 
commissions, and wrote to Hayward stating that 
he had engagements on hand which would occupy 
him for over two years in advance. ‘The wealthy - 
citizens of Boston were unsparing in their liber- 
ality towards him, whom they admired as much 
as a man as they respected as an artist. 

Soon afterwards the master wrote: “I had a 
delightful visit from Morse. Its only fault was 
being too short. The same from my old friend 
Fraser.” Morse, the President of the National 
Academy, on returning from this journey, ex- 
claimed: “I go to Allston as a comet goes to 
the sun, not to add to his material, but to imbibe 
light from him.” Morse found his old master 
delightfully situated at Cambridge, engrossed 
by congenial studies and assiduous labors, and 
prophesied that the ‘Michael setting the Guard 


NO BATTLE-SCENES. 139 


of the Heavenly Host at the Gates of Paradise,’ 
and other pictures then under way, would rank 
him by the side of Raphael. In 1834 Dunlap — 
shall we not call him the American Vasari? — 
placed Allston at the head of living artists. 
When the Government was arranging the deco- 
ration of the Rotunda in the Capitol, Allston was 


commissioned to paint the great pictures for the 


panels. He, however, declined this flattering 


appointment, and urged the fitness of Morse, his 
old pupil, then President of the National Acad- 


—emy of Design. But John Quincy Adams intro- 


duced a resolution in Congress in favor of foreign 
artists, alleging that there were no American 
painters competent to the work; and Fenimore 


Cooper answered him with a severe and masterly 


paper in the New York Zvening Fost. This reply 


was attributed to Morse, whose name was there- 
fore rejected by the committee; and Allston 


hastened to offer his sympathy and consolation. 


When the master was consulted, some years be- 
fore, as to his willingness to paint pictures for 


‘the Rotunda, he had replied: “I will undertake 


one only, and I choose my own sybject. No bat- 


tle-piece.” He often avowed his disinclination 


140 ALLSTON. 


to paint battle scenes, — Charles Sumner has 
borne witness to it, and who then can doubt? 

Allston united with Cooper and Everett in 
securing for Greenough the Government commis- 
sion for the statue of Washington, which resulted 
in the noble work now in the Capitol Park at 
Washington. In later years he joined Sumner in 
aiding Greenough and Crawford; and on the very 
evening of his death he talked enthusiastically 
of Crawford and his works. He was also very 
friendly to G. P. A. Healy, who gave the master 
one of his skilful copies after Titian. 

In 1838 Allston frequently visited Harding’s, 
where he met N. P. Willis, then a handsome and 
poetic young man, with a free and sparkling pen. 
When these two skilful story-tellers met, the 
winged hours flew rapidly by, and brought the 
midnight full soon. About this same time Words- 
worth inquired earnestly of Charles Sumner about 
the welfare of Allston, whom he “regarded as 
the first artist of the age, and was attached to 
by twofold relations, — first, as his own friend, 
and then as the affectionate friend of Coleridge.” 
Ticknor wrote home to Dana, “There is not a 
man in Europe who can paint a picture like All- 


MISS CLARKE. I4t 


ston.” Giulian C. Verplanck characterized the 
artist as Arte clarus, literis ornatus, moribus pul- 
chrior. 

Allston’s chief pupil while at Cambridge was 
Miss Sarah Clarke, the sister of James Freeman 
Clarke, and now a resident of Rome. She was 
an intimate friend of Margaret Fuller, who once 
said of her: “ Her neighborhood casts the mild- 
ness and purity too of the moonbeam on the else 
party-colored scene.” 

To a young man who asked his advice about 
becoming an artist, he said: “It is a calling full 
of delays and disappointments, and I can never 
recommend any one to pursue it. If he must be 
a painter, let him come prepared to bear up a 
mighty burden.” He advised a young artist 
thus: “Do not be anxious, but put faith in your 
fingers. When I paint, I often do not look at 
my palette; I take off my colors by a secret 
sympathy between my hand and the pigments.” 
Another tyro in art submitted a landscape for 
the master’s criticism, and he remarked, “ Your 
trees do not look as if the birds could fly through 
them,” When some one asked him if a certain 
picture of his own was not his favorite, he re- 
joined, “TI love a// my children.” 


142 ALLSTON. 


In 1839 an exhibition of forty-two of Allston’s 
pictures was held in Harding’s Gallery, in Bos- 
ton; and although his larger works were not 
included, yet the beauty and exquisite finish of 
those displayed created a profound impression 
on all appreciative spectators. The originality 
and versatility of these works attested the wide 
range.of his conceptions, as well as the indi- 
viduality of his genius ; and American art for the 
first time could display, in one group and from 
one master-hand, the choicest excellences of 
painting and design, thoroughly harmonious in 
their perfect finish, noble conceptions, and per- 
manent power. The artist himself was enrap- 
tured to see once more the works of twoscore 
years, many of which had been out of his sight 
ever since they had left the studio. 

Tuckerman has described this exhibition as 
follows: “We turned from the impressive figure 
of the ‘ Reviving Dead,’ slowly renewing vitality 
at the touch of the prophet’s bones, to the pen- 
sive beauty of ‘ Beatrice,’ ineffably lovely and 
sad ; the countenance of ‘ Rosalie’ seemed kin- 
dled like that of the maiden described by Words- 


worth, as if music ‘ born of murmuring sound had 


MARGARET FULLER. 143 


passed into her face’; aerial in her movement, 
and embodied grace in her attitude and drapery, 
‘Miriam’ sounded the timbrel; the very foot of 
the scribe appeared to listen to Jeremiah, — stern, 
venerable, and prophetic; keenly glittered the 
Alpine summits, and sweetly fell the moon- 
beams, and darkly rose the forests in the land-’ 
scapes, as if glimpses of real nature, instead of 
their reflex, made alive the canvas ; full of char- 
acter and dignity were the portraits ; magnificent 
old Jews’ heads, and exquisite brows of maidens, 
and imposing forms of prophets, and marvellous 
light and shade, deep, lucent, mellow hues, — all 
flitted before the senses of the visitor, while each 
picture formed an inexhaustible object of con- 
templation, and became a permanently beautiful 
and impressive reminiscence.” 

Margaret Fuller wrote a long article for “ The 
Dial,” criticising the pictures in the Allston Ex- 
hibition, and reflecting severely on the historical 
compositions. The Dead Man was an offensive 
subject ; the Massacre of the Innocents had no 
force ; Jeremiah was a robust and angry Jew; 
Miriam was shallow-eyed and inadequate ; and 
the Witch of Endor was attended by a stage- 


144 ALLSTON. 


ghost and a degraded king. ‘Therefore, as Miss 
Fuller reasoned, Allston was not adapted to his- 
toric works, but to the exposition of Beauty, in 
which he showed rare subjective excellence, bland 
delicacy, perfect equipoise, and unconscious self- 
possession, with great skill in drapery and an 
exquisite sensibility to color. In “The Dial ” 
for 1840 there was a long poem, contrasting ihe 
Italian landscapes of Gaspar Poussin, Domeni- 
chino, and Allston. 

Mr. Spear, the historical painter, a friend of 
Allston’s, states that about 1840 Allston told him 
that Correggio was the master on whose works 
he had modelled his style. He extolled the 
“mottled ” manner, and explained his own cus- 
tom of painting with blue, red, and yellow mingled, 
taking the color which he wished to be predomi- 
nant as the last upon the brush, and carefully 
stippling over the work. He repeatedly advised 
Spear to “ paint in the family of the zshes,” that 
is, to avoid sharp and pronounced colors, and to 
prefer reddish to red, bluish to blue, ete. 

Harding’s first portrait of Allston represented 
him in his favorite blue coat with brass buttons 
and buff waistcoat. One arm is placed akimbo 


LEARNED PUNDITS. 145 


with such a martial air that the friends of the 
sitter afterwards playfully entitled him “Colonel 
Allston.” About the year 1845 Harding painted 
from memory an admirable portrait of Allston, 
which was purchased by Mr. Batchelder a few 
years later, and still remains in his mansion at 
Cambridge. 

Sumner visited the studio in 1840, and re- 
ported that Allston had unrolled the ‘Belshazzar’s 
Feast’ across one entire side-wall, but had care- 
fully curtained it from view. It was during the. 
year 1840 that he painted ‘The Bride.’ 

Allston was a great friend of George Ticknor, 
and delighted to visit his famous library. In 1841 
Mr. Ticknor wrote of a dinner at which Long- 
fellow, Prescott, Hillard, and Allston were present 
with him. The artist was a frequent visitor at 
the mansion of Professor Norton, in Cambridge, 
where some of his minor pictures are still pre- 
served. 

In 1841 Wordsworth wrote from Rydal Mount 
to Professor Reed of Philadelphia, telling how 
many years ago he had been introduced to the 
master by “our common friend Coleridge, who 
had seen much of Mr. Allston when they were 


146 ALLSTON. 


both living at Rome.” After Wordsworth had 
been apprized, by the Rev. Mr. Waterston, of the 
death of the artist at Cambridge, he wrote lament- 
ing “the death of that admirable artist and amia- 
ble man, my old friend Mr. Allston.” 

When Lord Morpeth (the Earl of Carlisle) vis- 
ited Boston, in 1841, he was introduced to Story, 
Channing, Longfellow, Bancroft, Ticknor, Emer- 
son, and Prescott. Sumner also made him ac- 
quainted with Allston. At this time Greenough 
was urging Allston to come to Italy, and received 
a letter from Sumner, telling how Longfellow and 
himself had recently drawn out an evening’s visit 
at the artist’s until midnight. He added that 
Allston was then busily engaged on the ‘ Belshaz- 
zar’s Feast,’ and would allow no one to enter the 
studio.. 

In his American Notes, Dickens says that 
“Washington Allston, the painter (who wrote 
‘Monaldi’), is a fine specimen of a glorious old 
genius.’ Grattan, in his “Civilized America,” 
calls Allston ‘‘the foremost of American paint- 
evs: 7 

Griswold says of the master, “Not long before 
his death I dined with him, and was astonished 


PROF, FELTON. 147 


when a companion intimated that it was after mid- 
night. We had listened six or seven hours with- 
out a thought of the lapse of time. His manners 
were gentle and dignified. His dress was simple 
and old-fashioned, — a blue coat with plain bright 
buttons, a buff vest, and drab pantaloons. His 
face was thin and serious, with remarkably ex- 
pressive eyes; his hair, fine, long, and silvery 
white, fell gracefully upon his shoulders ; and his 
voice was soft, earnest, and musical.” 

Allston read his lectures on art to Professors 
Longfellow and Felton, during the last winter of 
his life, and the latter thus describes the scene: 
“Tt was a most interesting and impressive thing 
to hear that beloved and venerated person, after 
making all his peculiar arrangements, — placing 
his lights each in a certain position, — setting his 
footstool between his chair and the fire, warming 
his feet, —lighting his cigar, and reducing his 
manuscripts to order, — read on, hour after hour, 
those masterly expositions clothed in the richest 
forms of language ; . . . his large, mysterious eye 
growing larger with the interest of his subject, his 
voice increasing in volume and strength, his pale 


countenance transfigured by his kindling soul to 


148 ALLSTON. 


an almost supernatural expression, until, as he 
uttered passage after passage of harmonious and 
magnificent discourse, he seemed to become the 
inspired prophet, declaring a new revelation of 
the religion of art... . Mr. Allston’s conversa- 
tion was singularly attractive. The Graces, seek- 
ing a shrine, certainly chose his soul for their 
temple. His peculiar and striking personal ap- 
pearance can never be forgotten. His tall and 
slender figure, his pale countenance, the tower- 
ing pile of his forehead, his regular and pleasing 
features, his large hazel eye, the venerable locks 
that waved in the solemn beauty of silvered age 
from his shapely head, formed in their combina- 
tion an image which he who has once seen sees 
forever. His manners were mild, sincere, urbane, 
and warm, expressing all the blended softness, 
grace, and dignity of his character. His voice was 
the gentlest utterance that ever mortal spoke in.” 

Not many days before he died Allston received 
a visit from his old friend, the Rev. R. C. Water- 
ston, who bore him an invitation from Weir to 
make a visit to the latter’s residence at West 
Point. He expressed a strong desire to accept 
this pleasant courtesy, but said that he was 


THE CLOSING SCENE. 149 


too busy at painting ; and added, stretching forth 
his arms, “ My wrists are so tired every night 
that they absolutely ache.” 

The closing scenes of Allston’s life cannot be 
better described than in the words of the vener- 
able poet, Richard H. Dana, in his letter to Pro- 
fessor Morse: “Your old friend, and one who 
spoke of you with deep affection, was taken from 
us most suddenly, and I may say most unexpect- 
edly ; for, though he seemed to be failing fast, 
his friends had no suspicion of a disease of the 
organs that would take him away instantly. The 
. great arteries were not essentially impaired ; but 
one or two that fed the heart itself were ossified. 
While none of the intestinal organs could be 
said to be in a healthy state, none, with the ex- 
ception of those I have mentioned as being ossi- 
fied, were in so diseased a condition that he 
might not have lived some years longer. So 


took a bust of him his 





long ago as when 
friends thought he would not live long, but he 
recruited. The winter before last he was se- | 
verely il], and we feared for him then. From 
that attack he but partially recovered, and from 
that time was plainly, with short terms of a better 


150 ALLSTON. 


state, a broken-down, failing man. His strength 
was not sufficient for his labor; and, while his 
intellect was as clear as ever, it was evident that 
the servant, the body, was too much weakened 
to do its appointed work. He spoke of himself 
as an old, broken-down man. It was plain, his 
wife says, from the dreadful depression he was 
under for the last ten months, when his friends 
were not around him, that he was suffering under 
the apprehension that he should not have strength 
to finish what he was about. God, in His mercy, 
spared him from living on with this thought to 
prey on him, and took him away in a moment, 
but with a touch as gentle as the breaking morn- 
ing light. Both my sisters and my daughter were 
there, preparatory to leaving him for the sum- 
mer. All but my daughter went to bed. She 
sat talking to him. He was strongly attached 
to her; and had spoken of her most affec- 
tionately, as he was wont to do, the last time 
I saw him. ‘I like to talk to her, for she al- 
ways takes my meaning at once,’ he said to 
me. He said many kind things to her this last 
night. ‘You are my niece,’ said he. ‘You 
are more to me,— you are my child. There are 


REST COMETH. 151 


relations nearer than those of blood.’ Twice 
he put his arms gently round her, and the second 
time kissed her forehead, and then lowered his 
head for her to kiss his cheek. He then looked 
-upward, and his eyes were as if he was seeing 
into the world of holiness and all peace, and he 
said, ‘I want you to be perfect, perfect. ... I 
do not feel like talking,’ he soon added, sat 
down, drew a chair to him for her to sit by him, 
took her hand, and occasionally spoke in some- 
what the same strain. Between twelve and one 
o’clock he complained of a pain in the chest; he 
had felt the same once before, about three weeks 
previous to this. She advised his taking some- 
thing for it, not thinking of it, however, as any- 
thing of much importance ; so that, when he went 
up to his wife’s chamber to get what she recom- 
mended, she herself went off to bed. He moved 
about as usual, and when his wife offered to go 
down and prepare something, he answered, ‘O, 
no! I can do it just as well myself.’ He went 
down again. She stopped to get something which 
she thought he might want, and followed him in 
five minutes. She found him sitting in his usual 


place, with his writing apparatus, which he had 


ee ALLSTON. 


just taken out, near him, his feet on the hearth, 
and his head resting on the back of his chair, in 
just the position in which he often took his nap. 
She went up to him ; his eyes were open, and, 
from their appearance, she thought he might have 
fainted. ‘They were all instantly with him. One 
of my sisters said to him, ‘Mr. Allston, we are 
all here.” His eyes soon closed. A physician. 
was called, they, in the mean time, doing all they 
could to revive him. There is very little doubt 
that life had stopped when his wife reached him. 
His physician says that he must have gone with- 
out a moment’s pain, — that it was a mere closing, 

“So beautiful an expression as was on his face, 
as he lay sleeping in Jesus, I never saw on the 
face of man. Spirits were with his spirit. And 
a most humble being he was before his God. In 
Christ and the great Atonement was his only 
trust. ‘Trust, do I say? it was his realized, fervid 
life. Not a fortnight before his death he opened 
his whole soul to the clergyman here, — a most 
interesting man, — who told me that such child- 
like, undoubting faith it was delightful to sit and 
hear poured forth. . . . I wish you could have 
seen more of Allston, particularly within the last 


eC 


THE END. 153 


year of his life... . If ever heavenly-mindedness 
showed itself in its Ze and deauty, it made itself 
visible to the mind of Allston, — humble, child- 
like, himself nothing, Christ all things, — love 
overflowed him, and the harmony of the upper 
world pervaded him, and harmonized for him all 
nature and all art. These were not separated 
from his religious life, because they were taken 
up into it and sanctified and made beautiful.” 
While Clevenger was making Allston’s bust 
the master was suffering under almost continual 
pain in the face, with a resulting expression of 
distress and rigidity of muscles. But after his 
decease Brackett took a cast from his face, 
whereof Dana said: “So beautiful was the coun- 
tenance after death, so softened the muscles, and 
rounded and smoothed the face, that he looked 
as he did years back, before disease and distress 
of mind had so preyed upon him.” Four years” 
later Allston’s head was modelled by Paul Duggan, 
for a medal struck by the American Art Union. 
Professor Morse, who had always sustained 
an almost filial relation to Allston, hastened from 
Washington to Cambridge to pay the last honors 
to his departed master. He secured as a pre- 


154 ALLSTON. 


cious memento a brush with which he was paint- 
ing the day he died, still moist with the paint 
which he had been laying on ‘The Feast of 
Belshazzar.’ ‘This relic was presented by Morse 
to the National Academy of Design, where it is 
still carefully preserved. 

Richard H. Dana and Christopher P. Cranch 
wrote obituary poems on Allston. Dr. Albro, 
the pastor of the Shepard Congregational So- 
ciety, delivered a long and appreciative sermon 
on his illustrious parishioner, which was after- 
wards printed and circulated. Albro applied to 
the deceased artist the words of Jeremy Taylor 
about the Countess of Carberry: “As if she 
knew nothing of it, she had a low opinion of 
herself ; and, like a fair taper, she shined to all 
the room ; yet round about her own station she 
cast a shadow and a cloud, and so shined to 
everybody but herself.” 

Many relics of Allston are preserved with 
pious care in Boston and Cambridge. Mr. Rich- 
ard H. Dana, Jr., has his favorite chair, the last 
quill-pen and painting-brush which he used, the © 
tortoise-shell tobacco-box which Collins gave 
him, the plate on which he mixed his colors the 








THE UNMARKED TOMB. 155 


day he died, and other rare mementoes. In 1863 
Miss Judkins presented to the Massachusetts 
Historical Society his blender for mingling colors. 

Allston’s remains were placed in the old Dana 
tomb, in the churchyard opposite Harvard Col- 
lege, where they still remain. The tomb is sub- 
terranean, and has no mark by which it can be 
recognized. The funeral was an impressive 
ceremony, having occurred just after dark, when 
the white moonlight streamed on the statuesque 
face of the dead master, and the burial service 
was read by the light of lanterns. Sumner, 
Story, and other eminent men were present at 
the grave. The first interment in this venerable 
cemetery occurred before the year 1650, and 
many professors of the college and venerable 
scholars have been buried there. Among the 
solemn graves are the tombs of the Vassals, the 
Belchers, and other high families of the colonial 
era. Sumner endeavored to raise $2,000 for a 
monument to Allston at Mount Auburn ; but the 
movement failed, on account of Mrs. Allston’s 
opposition. Some memorial should be raised, 
however humble and plain, over the Dana tomb, 
in order that the pilgrim of art may find the 
grave of the American Titian. 


156 ALLSTON. 


CHAPTER VII. 


Allston as an Author. — “ The Sylphs.”? — “ The Two Painters.” 
— Minor Poems. — “ Monaldi.’’ — “ Lectures on Art.’’ — Studio 
Aphorisms. 


In literature Allston exemplified his wide cul- 
ture by meritorious works as a poet, novelist, 
essayist, metaphysician, and critic. He would 
have made as great a success in letters as in art, 
if he had devoted the same energy to the pen as 
to the pencil. 

The volume of poems published in London, 
and republished in Boston, proves that the Cam- 
bridge master had a high degree of inspiration in 
that direction ; and well-nigh takes rank with the 
sonnets of Michael Angelo and the satires of Sal- 
vator Rosa. ‘The poems are light, sprightly, and 
gentle, full of particularity and truth, and showing 
a fine appreciation of nature and a lively imagi- 
nation. ‘They do not stir the intenser passions, 
nor open up realms of mystery or excitement, 
but rest in the fair sunlight, amid the delicate 


A FAIRY SONG. 157 


perfume of nature, placid and peaceful, and per- 
ceiving, with the eyes of the spirit of love, the 
beauty of the world beneath its outer incrusta- 
tions of vice and hatred. Sometimes the inno- 
cent muse ascends to inspiring realms of joyous 
magnificence, in the dominion of the imagina- 
tion, and sometimes flickering flashes of playful 
satire play through the else shadowy passages. 
Such poems as “Rosalie” and “The Tuscan 
Girl”’ illustrate his paintings in the most exquisite 
manner, showing the individuality of the artist 
and the purity of the man, and marking the unity 
whereby genius harmonizes all expressions to a 
common principle. 

The first poem in the book is “The Sylphs of 
the Seasons,” containing sixty-nine stanzas, and 
with minute felicity and deep introspection illus- 
trating the effects of the scenery of the seasons 
on the human mind. The poet first has a vision 
of-a desert cave, and then is carried in dream to 
a lofty castle, looking down on a plain adorned 
with scenery of every period, and with a double 
throne in its great hall. Four fairies, represent- 
ing the seasons, are grouped there, and inform 
the poet that the throne is his, and he is to 


158 ALLSTON. 


choose one of them to share it with him. Each 
of them sings to him of her charms of person 
and mind, beginning with Spring, who speaks cf 
her cheerful influences on humanity. 


“And next the Sylph of Summer fair ; 
The while her crispéd, golden hair 


Half veiled her sunny eyes,” 


derides the chilling fogs of Spring, and bids the - 
poet consider how her sweet languors, her rich 
scenery, and her visionary nights had “made 


the body’s indolence the vigor of the mind.” 


*¢ And now, in accents deep and low, 
Like voice of fondly cherished woe, 
The Sylph of Autumn sad,” 


declining to boast of her bright-hued fruits and 
golden harvests and rainbow forests, bids the 
poet consider how her ‘falling leaves and stormy 
seas and lurid sunsets taught him to muse on 
the decay of earthly pleasures, the melancholy 
advance of Death, and the sublimity of the life 
immortal. Last comes the Sylph of Winter, with 
piercing voice, vaunting the majestic and heart- 
stirring influences of her wild tempests, when 
from “Old Hecla’s cloudy height thou ” 


“THE TWO PAINTERS.” 159 


“ Hast known my petrifying wind 
Wild ocean’s curling billows bind, 
Like bending sheaves by harvest hind, 
Erect in icy death.” 

She sings of Nature sleeping under her robes of 
snowy plains, enriched by sunset with countless 
colors ; of the exquisite beauty of her frost-work ; 
and the refining and ennobling memories and 
images, free from sensuousness, which arose in 
her long and solemn nights. 

The poet stood “all motionless and mute,” 
unable to choose between such multifarious and 
seductive charms, until the break of day, when 
he awoke under the light of anew sun. Some 
of the descriptive passages are of the most fin- 
ished and exquisite beauty and delicacy, and re- 
veal the earnest working of a most sensitive and 
creative imagination. 

“The Two Painters” is a metric satire of six 


Cin 


hundred and forty lines, which Dana says 

easy and narrative style reminds us of the tales 

of Swift, Prior, and Gay.” It is in ridicule of the 

idea that artistic excellence in one department 

alone, scorning the others, can reach perfection. 
“Once on a time in Charon’s wherry, 


Two Painters met, on Styx’s ferry, ”” 


160 ALLSTON. 


the one a colorist, and the other a painter of 
mind, and wrangled so noisily that the grim boat- 
man silenced them as ‘‘unmannered ghosts.” 
Deep-whizzing through the wave, amid the des- 
olate cries of low-crouching spectre-birds, the 
sheeted dead passed onward through the gloom, 
and met the social shades of many other inquisi- 
tive ghosts upon the further strand. Poets, paint- 
ers, politicians, philosophers, and other whilom 
great ones gathered round to ask how the world 
still regarded their memories ; but they were hur- 
ried to the judgment-seat of Minos, who chose . 
the spirit of Da Vinci to arbitrate their quarrel. 
The colorist and the designer made long ad- 
dresses before the judge, each extolling himself 
and throwing contempt upon the other, and 
finally demanding that the case should be de- 
cided on the merits of their pictures. Mercury 
is sent to get them, but learns that they are dead 
and buried, and returns with a vast procession 
of ghostly pictures, which the assembled spirits 
criticise with sparkling wit. The shades of Soc- 
rates and Alexander wax angry and sarcastic at 
the anachronistic caricatures which had been 


made of them, until the judge arose in ire, and 


“THE PAINT-KING.” 161 


bestowed bitter reprimands upon the two paint- 
ers, bidding them consider Raphael, who united 
nearly all the excellences of art by wise study of 
his great contemporaries. He then sentenced 
them to be bound in one yoke, to paint together 
for five centuries, and then perhaps gracious Jove 
would send them back to earth as one artist. | 


‘“ For thus the eternal Fates decree: 
‘One leg alone shall never run, 


Nor two Half-Painters make but one.’ ” 


“Eccentricity” is a didactic poem of four hun- 
dred and thirteen lines, portraying numerous ri- 
diculous and affected characters such as are often 
met by the student of humanity, in ponderous 
and involved sentences which recall the profun- 
dities of Pope or Cowper. The following is the 
closing sentiment : — 

“O task sublime, to till the human soil, 
Where fruits immortal crown the laborer’s toil! 
Where deathless flowers, in everlasting bloom, 
May gales from heaven with odorous sweets perfume, 
* Whose fragrance still, when man’s last work is done, 
And hoary Time his final course has run, 
Through ages back, with freshening power shall last, 
Mark his long track, and linger where he passed!” 


“The Paint-King” is a weird and mock-roman- 
tic poem of thirty-eight stanzas, describing the 


162 ALLSTON. 


abduction of the fair Ellen by the Paint-King, who 
captivated her in the guise of a fascinating youth, 
with a mysterious picture of Pygmalion and Gal- 
atea. He swept her away through the air to a 
mountain-cave, and then appeared before her in 
his true aspect, with a face “like a palette of 
villanous dyes,” sitting on a Titan’s skull, and 
smoking a pipe twice as big as the Eddystone 
Lighthouse. He immersed her for seven days in 
a jug of oil, and then ground her up, spreading on 
his palette the blue of her eyes, the brown of her 
hair, the red of her lips, etc., to paint therewith 
the portrait of Geraldine the fairy. But he failed 
in the picture, which was to give him the fairy for 
a wife or to cost him his life, and Geraldine at once 
slew him and released Ellen from her pulverized 
state. As wild a fancy, surely, and as well wrought 
out, as any Hawthorne ever dreamed of. 
Following “The Paint-King” were two poems, 
respectively “To a Lady, who Lamented that she 
had never been in Love,” and “To a Lady ‘who 
Spoke slightingly of Poets,” — melodious stanzas, 
full of delicate sentiment and active fancy. Next 


came six sonnets, to West, Rembrandt, Tibaldi, - 


the Luxembourg Gallery, and the magnificent 


eed te ile ae Ra 


a 


“MONALDI.” 163 


tributes to the falling group in Angelo’s ‘ Last 
Judgment’ and Raphael’s ‘Three Angels before 
Abraham’s Tent.’ The London edition closed 
with four simple and touching ballads. 

Allston sent a volume of his poems to Lady 
Beaumont, and Collins, who delivered it, wrote to 
him: “Southey said that, whatever defects some 
of them might have, he had no hesitation in say- 
ing that they could not have proceeded from any 
but a poetic mind; in which sentiment he was 
most cordially supported by Wordsworth, who 
was present at the time.” 

“Monaldi”’ is the title of an Italian romance 
which Allston composed in 1821 for publication 
in Richard H. Dana’s serial of “The Idle Man.” 
The sudden suspension of the periodical caused 
the author to throw his manuscript aside; but 
twenty years later he sought it out and gave it to 
the public. ‘The story opens with an adventure 
in the Abruzzi Mountains, which leads the narra- 
tor to a secluded monastery wherein he discovers 
a weird and mysterious painting of Satan, on a 
golden throne, adored by an agonized mortal. 
This incident is described with a graphic vigor 
which confirms the author’s renown as a teller 


164 | ALLSTON. 


of ghost-stories, and exemplifies how keenly he 
enjoyed the supernatural and how eagerly he re- 
ceived legendary and marvellous stories. These 
traits appear still more richly in such pictures 
as the Belshazzar and the Spalatro, the bandit- 
haunted forests, the sorceress of Endor. After 
its impressive beginning, the story is carried on 
with an easy grace and a revealing power which 
mark the author’s masterly skill in construction, 
and his comprehension of the secret and terrible 
workings of love, jealousy, and revenge. In some 
parts the situations are appalling in their tragic 
power ; but elsewhere there are bright and attrac- 
_ tive passages on art and nature, in which the 


experience and reflections of the writer during 


his years of Roman life are vividly set forth. The 


heroine of the story is an ideally lovely creation, 
filled with spiritual life and strength, and recalling 
the lineaments of certain of the master’s pictures. 
The hero is a painter, and his character is un- 
folded with great vigor and masterly analysis. 
The construction of the plot is faulty in parts, but 
the style is concise and simple, and often becomes 
eloquent and melodious. ‘The book was trans- 


lated into the German language. 


a ee 


ys Bee dg Sy” |, oh dy 


LECTURES ON ART. 165 


Professor Felton thus criticises “ Monaldi”: 
“The style of this work is flowing, melodious, pic- 
turesque, and beautifully finished ; many of its 
scenes are wrought up with a terrible power, 
more of them sparkle with all the graces of im- 
agination and taste. ‘There are paragraphs in 
that book in which the very soul of the author 
seems to pour itself out in strains of the richest 
melody ; there are innumerable passages of such 
graphic beauty that no other hand could have 
traced them but his whose marvellous cunning 
painted for all coming time the Beatrice, Rosa- 
lie, and Amy Robsart.” 

Soon after 1830 Mr. Allston began the prep- 
aration of a series of lectures, which he was to 
have delivered before a select audience in Bos- 
ton. He completed four of these lectures, and 
made the drafts of two others. They were edited 
by Richard H. Dana, Jr., and published at New 
York, in 1850, in a volume which also included 
Allston’s poems. Professor Felton says that 
they “contain the essence of Allston’s entire 
artistic life. .. . This is indeed a golden leg- 


acy to the art and literature of our country.” 


- A note preliminary to the lectures carefully 


166 ALLSTON. 


defined the word zdea, in the sense in which it 
should be used therein, as ‘the highest or most 
perfect form in which anything, whether of the 
physical, the intellectual, or the spiritual, may 
exist to the mind. There are two kinds of ideas, 
self-afirmed, and therefore not mere notions,— 
the przmary, or manifestation of objective real- 
ities; and the secondary, or the reflex products 
of the mental constitution.” | 

The “Introductory Discourse” opens with an 
exaltation of the mental pleasures, and proceeds 
to state and demonstrate the following proposi- 
tion: “That the Pleasures in question have their 


true source in One Intuitive Universal Principle 


or living Power, and that the three Ideas of 


Beauty, Truth, and Holiness, which we assume 
to represent the perfect in the physical, intellec- 
tual, and moral worlds, are but the several real- 
ized phases of this sovereign principle, which we 
shall call Harmony.’ This is attended with a 
profound and philosophical analysis of the idea 
of Beauty, with its powers and limitations; a 
consideration of the imperishable pleasure of 
Truth, illustrated aptly in many ways; and a 
reverent contemplation of Goodness, and its re- 


ad es = 


ART AND NATURE. 167 


sistless ultimate power. ‘The divine harmony 
in which these principles are united is then pro- 
claimed, and the manner and efficacy of the syn- 
thesis are set forth,— the argument ascending, 
as it were, in a continuous spiral, and at last 
resting above the stars. 

The second lecture demonstrates that Art is 
distinguished from Nature by four great charac- 
teristics, namely, Originality ; Human or Poetic 
Truth, the verifying principle by which the first 
is recognized ; Invention, or the product of the 
Imagination, as grounded on the first and ver- 
ified by the second ; and Unity, the synthesis of 
all. ‘There is a fine comparison, in the course 
of the argument, between Raphael and Ostade ; 
and the power of Poetic Truth is demonstrated 
by glowing allusions to Shakespeare’s Caliban, 
Sir Joshua Reynolds’s Puck, the Farnese Her- 
cules, and the Apollo Belvedere. 

The third lecture was on the Human Form, 
and contains the following propositions: “ First, 
that the notion of one or more standard Forms; 
which shall in all cases serve as exemplars, is 
essentially false, and of impracticable applica- 
tion for any true purpose of Art; secondly, that 


168 ALLSTON. 


the only approach to Science, which the subject 
admits, is in a few general rules relating to Stat- 
ure, and these, too, serving rather as convenient 
expedients than exact guides, inasmuch as, in 
most cases, they allow of indefinite variations ; 
and, thirdly, that the only efficient Rule must be 
found in the artist’s mind, —in those intuitive 
Powers which are above, and beyond, both the 
senses and the understanding ; which, neverthe- 
less, are so far from precluding knowledge, as, 
on the contrary, to require, as their effective 
condition, the widest intimacy with the things 
external, — without which their very existence 
must remain unknown to the artist himself.” 
This thoughtful discourse closes with a brilliant 
comparison of Raphael and Michael Angelo, 
“the two great sovereigns of the two distinct 
empires of Truth,—the Actual and the Imagi- 
native.” 

The fourth and last lecture treats of Compo- 
sition in Art, which contains the following char- 
acteristics: “ First, Unity of Purpose, as express- 
ing the general sentiment or intention of the 
Artist. Secondly, Variety of Parts, as expressed 
in the diversity of shape, quantity, and line. 


STUDIO APHORISMS. 169 


Thirdly, Continuity, as expressed by the connec- 
tion of parts with each other, and their relation 
to the whole. Fourthly, Harmony of Parts.” 
Variety is illustrated by Veronese’s ‘ Marriage of 
Cana’; and the systems of lines of Claude and 
of Salvator Rosa are skilfully contrasted. Ra- 
phael, Tintoretto, Poussin, and Claude are con- 
sidered in their early imitative idea; and Rey- 
nolds’s defence of borrowing is reprehended. 

The walls of Allston’s studio were marked with 
over forty aphoristic sentences, which, as he told 
Mrs. Jameson, served as “texts for reflection be- 
fore he began his day’s work.” He sometimes 
discussed their merits with visitors, and contin- 
ually pondered them in his heart. From these 
articles of his artistic creed we select a half-dozen, 
almost at random, as expository of his character 
and genius. 

“Tf an Artist love his Art for its own sake, he 
will delight in excellence wherever he meets it, as 
well in the works of another as his own. This 
is the test of a true love.” 

“The love of gain never made a Painter ; but 
it has marred many.” 

“Distinction is the consequence, never the 


object, of a great mind.” 


170 ALLSTON. 


“ There is an essential meanness in the wish /o 
get the better of any one. The only competition 
worthy of a wise man is with himself.” 

“Make no man your idol, for the best man 
must have faults ; and his faults will insensibly 
become yours, in addition to your own. This is 
as true in Art as in morals.” 

“What “ght is in the natural world, such is 
Jame in the intellectual ; both requiring an az- 
mosphere in order to become perceptible. Hence 
the fame of Michael Angelo is, tosome minds, 
a nonentity; even as the sun itself would be 
invisible 272 vacuo.” 

As a word-painter Allston was almost as suc- 
cessful as in his own profession, and few richer 
pen-pictures can be found than those in which he 
describes the scenery of the Apennines, or a hot 
white summer noon in Rome, or the Alps at 
morning around Lake Maggiore. His conversa- 
tion was no less brilliant than his writings, full of 
wisdom and sympathy and rich experience, and 
alike improving and inspiring to all who heard it. 
The colloquial accomplishment was not with him 
a lost art, and the humble home at Cambridge- 


port often heard marvellous discourses and remi- 


REMINISCENCES. 171 


niscences. The varied and picturesque experi- 
ences of an active lifetime in many lands were 
freely poured forth in accents of grace and 
vitality. One of his favorite themes was his 
sojourn in Rome, with the august memories of 
| his friendship with 'Thorwaldsen, Coleridge, and 


Irving, and their rambles and discussions among 





the ruins and palaces of the Eternal City. 


172 ALLSTON. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


Personal Traits. — System of Color. — Versatility. — Italianism. — 


Slight Influence on American Art. 


ALLSTON’sS personal appearance was such as 
would have distinguished him among a thousand. 
His figure was slender, but straight and active, 
and his air seemed serenely abstracted, when not 
enlivened by conversation. His broad and spirit- 
ual forehead was bordered by long white hair, 
which descended upon his shoulders in waving 
masses. His eyes appeared large and eloquent, 
and were somewhat projecting. His chin was 
short, but not receding. The general expression 
of the face indicated mildness and sweetness, bor- 
dering on effeminacy, yet there was that behind it 
which rendered it impossible for visitors to show 
undue familiarity or freedom. Mr. Allston’s man- 
ner was so dignified and courtly that Collins, the 
Royal Academician, once said: “Were any one 
to meet Washington Allston in the street, with a 
sack of coals on his shoulders, he would at once 


recognize him as a gentleman.” 


SUMNER’ S PEN-PORTRATT. 173 


John Howard Payne, in his later years, gave to 
Washington Irving the following laconic descrip- 
tion of the master: “ Allston was always the 
gentleman. Would talk by the hour. Liked to 
talk. A capital teller of ghost-stories. Would act 
them with voice, eyes, and gesture. Had touches 
of gentle humor. Rather indolent. Would lie late 
in bed. Smoked segars. A man of real genius. 
A noble painter. It was a pity he came back (in 
1818); he would have risen to the head of his 
art,— been the greatest painter of his day.” 
Charles Sumner also said: “ Allston was a good 
man, with a soul refined by purity, exalted by 
religion, softened by love. In manner he was 
simple, yet courtly,— quiet, though anxious to 
please, — kindly to all alike, the poor and lowly 
not less than the rich and great. As he spoke, in 
that voice of gentlest utterance, all were charmed 
to listen ; and the airy-footed hours often tripped 
on far towards the gates of morning before his 
friends could break from his spell.” 

The delicate sensitiveness of the master was 
shown in many and peculiar ways. When india- 
rubber overshoes began to be worn, he pur- 
chased a pair, but could never put them on or 


17a ALLSTON. 


remove them except with the tongs. He dis- 
liked the touch of metallic door-knobs, and 
usually interposed the skirt of his coat, or a 
handkerchief, between his hand and the metal. 

One of the singular customs of the artist’s 
household was that in relation to a fire on the 
hearth, which was kept up throughout the year, 
so that visitors were favored with the music of a 
few crackling brands, even during the sufficient 
heats of an August evening. 

Allston was one of the most graceful dancers 
ever seen in Massachusetts, having been distin- 
suished for a rare suppleness and ease. ‘The 
cotillion was in high favor at that time, and happy 
was the lady who could secure him as a partner. 
He would sometimes find himself dancing almost 
alone, the others having ceased in order to ob- 
serve and admire his unrivalled grace. This 
accomplishment was especially noticeable after 
Allston’s first visit to Europe, while he was still 
young and delighted in society. 

He was fond of reading metaphysical works, 
and had no less pleasure in wild and supernat- 
ural romances, tinged with dablerie. He perused 
“ The Five Nights of St. Alban’s” with a keen zest, 
and exulted in the works of Mrs. Radcliffe. 


a 


HIARMONY. 175 


Jarves enumerates Allston’s faults as “ inequal- 
ity of execution, imperfect modelling at times, 
not infrequent bad taste in details, and a forcible 
realism of feature and ose in some of his great- 
est figures, amounting almost to awkwardness 
and ugliness.” In 1878 George Inness said that 
“ Allston’s misfortune was that the literary had 
too strong hold upon his mind, creating in him 
ideas which were grandiose.” 

Allston laid in his pictures in solid crude col- 
ors, and put them by for months, while the vehi- 
cle which he used hardened the pigments to a 
stony surface. When the long process of drying 
and hardening was over, he added tenderness 
and richness to their solidity and strength by the 
skilful application of transparent glazing colors. 
Some of his unfinished works still remain in their 
state of unrelieved hardness. He also experi- 
mented to a hazardous degree, and some of his 
works have already lost their subtlest qualities of 
transparency and brilliancy. 

A recent critic (Miss Sarah Clarke) thus 
strikes the keynote of Allston’s melodious sys- 


tem: “The method of this artist was to suppress 


all the coarser beauties which make up the sub- 


176 ALLSTON. 


stance of common pictures. He was the least 
ad captandum of workers. He avoided bright 
eyes, curls, and contours, glaring lights, strong 
contrasts, and colors too crude for harmony. 
He reduced his beauty to her elements, so that 
an inner beauty might play through her features. 
Like the Catholic discipline which pales the face 
of the novice with vigils, seclusion, and fasting, 
and thus makes room and clears the way for the 
movements of the spirit, so in these figures every 
vulgar grace is suppressed. No classic contours, 
no languishing attitudes, no asking for admi- 
ration, — but a severe and chaste restraint, a 
modest sweetness, a slumbering intellectual at- 
mosphere, a graceful self-possession, eyes so sin- 
cere and pure that heaven’s light shines through 
them, and, beyond all, a hovering spiritual life 
that makes each form a presence.” 

Ware attributes no small part of Allston’s suc- 
cess to his general cultivation of mind, which 
enabled him to impart the vigor and elegance of 
learning to his designs, and to give his charac- 
ters a notable dignity. Joined to this broad 
culture, and illuminating it, were the noble and 
elevated traits of the artist’s soul, earnest truth- 





ADVISES VERSATILITY. 177 


fulness, unselfishness, simplicity, and consecra- 
tion to the highest ends of art. It was impossi- 
ble for a man who thus formed a conscience of 
his art either to make many pictures or much 
money. Another foundation of his fame was 
that he so often painted life-size figures, which 
gave him a correct and elevated manner of exe- 
cution and a corresponding mental inspiration. 
Yet these works, though rivalling the great medi- 
zeval frescos in size, were finished with the con- 
scientious exactness and minute finish of Dutch 
cabinet-pictures. 

He advised a young artist studying in Europe: 
**Do not be satisfied with being one thing. The 
old masters did everything. ‘They were sculp- 
tors and architects, as well as painters. Nay, 
they were poets and philosophers, as Michael 
Angelo and Leonardo da Vinci. They painted, 
also, all sorts of pictures, and succeeded in all. 
Titian, the best portrait, was also the best land- 
scape, painter ; at least, he was inferior only to 
Claude.” | 

He could not endure the stilted allegorical 
compositions of the schools of West and Fuseli, 
and once said: “If you are going to paint a tub 


178 ALLSTON. 


or a candlestick, paint a tub or a candlestick in 
very truth, and not an allegory therefor.” 

The versatility of Allston in painting at will 
historical compositions, portraits, ideal heads, 
landscapes, marines, and genre pictures was ac- 
companied with a minute and delicate finish be- 
stowed on all alike. It was matter of wonder, 
when his pictures were collected in Boston, how 
so much work could have been crowded into one 
short life, and that a crippled one. The grand 
figures of his prophets and kings were not more 
carefully and minutely painted than the accesso- 
ries of still-life, — the vases, jewels, and back- 
grounds. But this versatility was fatal to the 


master’s pre-eminence in American art, for life 


is not long enough for the noblest mind and _ 


deftest hand to attain illustrious excellence in 
so many departments of endeavor. He should 
have confined himself to small ideal subjects, 
with which he had full sympathy. 

Allston’s love for sublimity was hardly less 
than his devotion to beauty, though it was not so 
often displayed in his art. Not often in Nature, 
affluent chiefly in beauty, did he seek sublimity, 
or attempt its delineation, but rather in the emo- 


es fotiaaii ieee ip epinis SE TREN 8 SA Se 





ee eee 


EXPRESSION. 179 


tions of the human mind, remorse, woe, super- 
natural terror. In these themes he succeeded 
marvellously well, insomuch that his pictures 
leave an abiding and haunting impression in the 
mind. The sharp manifestations of passionate 
life are veiled in an atmosphere of divine glow 
and profound mystery, inviting the study of the 
most reflective and contemplative of men, and 
rich in simple genuineness and magnetic charm. 
Through this calm repose played the rhythmic 
melody of delicate repetitions of color, in the 
manner of Paul Veronese, forming what Allston 
himself called an echo of colors. 

In expression, or the power of portraying emo- 
tions and dispositions, Allston found another of 
his noble characteristics, though he withheld a 


display of this gift in a majority of his pictures, 


preferring to paint calm and passionless faces, 


full of tender and thoughtful beauty, and giving 
free scope to the imagination. Dignity is para- 
mount, a grand abstraction, a passive majesty. 
In his favorite domain of ideal female heads he 
rarely represented faces as beautiful in the popu- 
lar acceptation, but as introspective, reposeful, si- 
lent, and inanimate. If beauty can exist without 


180 ALLSTON. 


expression, it finds no more perfect exemplifica- 
tions than Allston’s ‘ Rosalie’ and ‘ Beatrice,’ — 
not even in Leonardo’s ‘Monna Lisa’ nor Ra- 
phael’s ‘Fornarina.’ This attribute of repose 
pervades almost all of the master’s faces, and 
fills them with the spirit of contemplation and 
peace ; and herein is the highest triumph of what 
Lord Napier of Merchiston called “the incom- 


parable pencil of Allston.” 


Mr. Allston once said, “I never let a picture 


go out from my studio until I have finished it as 
well as I can”; and again (to Mrs. Jameson), 
““My industry should be measured, not by the 
pictures seen, but by those not seen.” He took 
exception to Dunlap’s declaration that he was 
indolent, saying, “I am famous among my ac- 
quaintances for industry: I paint every day: 
and never pass an hour without accomplishing 
something.” 

Every part of Allston’s pictures was executed 
by his own hand, a fact which America has cause 
to mourn. Had he possessed such assistants 
as those of Raphael and other ancients to do the 
mechanical work, laying in the first colorings, and 


painting the unconsidered accessories, he might 


ava 


teh A easy ont id dott teen i ea ce 


ee 


TUCKERMAN’S CRITICISM. 181 


have adorned his country with hundreds of his 
noble conceptions, finished, in all essential parts, 
by his own hand. Under such supervision as he 
could have given, scores of young artists would 
have flocked to his side, relieving him of his 
day-laborer’s drudgery and imbibing his spirit of 
grace and beauty, and the Cambridge studio 
would have been the birthplace of American art. 

Tuckerman, one of the leading art-critics of 
America, thus characterizes Allston: “With the 
name of this great painter, painting reached its 
acme of excellence among us. In genius, char- 
acter, life, and feeling, he emulated the Italian 
masters, partook of their spirit, and caught the 
mellow richness of their tints. Around his re- 
vered name cluster the most select and gratifying 
associations of native art; in each department he 
exhibited a mastery. .. . From an Alpine land- 
scape, luminous with frosty atmosphere and sky- 
piercing mountains, to moonbeams flickering 
on a quiet stream,—from grand Scriptural to 
delicate fairy figures, —from rugged and solemn 
Jewish heads to the most ideal female concep- 
tions, — from ‘Jeremiah’ to ‘ Beatrice,’ and from 
‘Miriam ’ to ‘ Rosalie,’ every phase of mellow and 


182 ALLSTON. 


transparent, — almost magnetic color, graceful 
contours, deep expression, rich contrast of tints, 
—the mature, satisfying, versatile triumph of 
pictorial art, as we have known and loved it in 
the Old World, then and there, justified the name 
of American Titian, bestowed on Allston at 
Rome ; while the spiritual isolation and benig- 
nity, the instructive and almost inspired dis- 
course, the lofty ideal, the religious earnestness, 
even the lithe frame, large, expressive eyes, and 
white flowing locks of Allston, his character, his 
life, conversation, presence, and memory, pro- 
claimed the great artist.” 

Thirty-five years have passed since Allston’s 
pencil fell from his weary hand, and American 
art has made noble progress. But whatever its 
achievements in those departments which are 
favored by modern taste, it has not yet surpassed 
—it has not equalled—the grandeur of the 
imaginative works of the great Carolinian. He 
strove for excellence, and loved it for its own 
sake, without thought of temporal considerations 
and emoluments, save as beautifully expressed in 
his own words: “Fame is the eternal shadow of ex- 


cellence, from which it can never be separated.” 


ITALIAN TRAITS. 183 


Although a child of the New World and of 
the railway age, Allston’s life and works, his face 
and manners, were those of another epoch, and 
partook of the dignity and power of the old mas- 
ters of Italian art. And this was not because he 
had dwelt long amid the suggestive scenes of the 
classic lands, for his abode in Southern Europe 
was comparatively short in its duration, and 
occurred in the earlier part of his life. Powers 
became a dweller in Italy, yet never allowed his 
quaint Yankee traits to be obliterated ; nor did 
Cole’s long residence near the Apennines force 
him to forget the Catskills and the White Hills. 
Yet here, in one of the least prepossessing of 
New England villages we find an antique soul 
developing characteristics which would have been 
more congenial to the Greeks of the days of 
Pericles or the Romans of the sixteenth Chris- 
tian century. 

The dignity and lofty aims of true art were 
ever present in Allston’s mind, and narrowed the 
compass of his achievements by increasing the 
conscientious demands which he made upon him- 
self in the search after his exalted ideal. He 
was dissatisfied with his best works, however 


184 ALLSTON. 


glorious they certainly were, because they came 
short of supreme excellence; and hence arose 
the frequent interruptions therein, as he laid 
down the pencil in hopeless humility. But 
although he was thus distrustful of his own 
abilities, his magnanimity disposed him to be 
an enlightened critic and a discriminating coun- 
sellor; and many were the artists who profited 
by his appreciative advice and sympathy, and 
hailed him as Master. 

Allston should have spent his life in Italy, in 
the very presence of the works of his great 
guides in art. The British school exercised no 
influence upon his noble style, composed, as it 
was, of a strong originality mingled with the 
motives of the Italian leaders of the sixteenth 
century. His return to America was an abnega- 
tion of the wealth and distinction which awaited 
him abroad, but served to light a section of the 
home-land as from a high beacon. ‘The atmos- 
phere and the people were uncongenial to art, 
but its disciple stood fast amid the practicalities 
of the dullest era of American life, and lifted his 
rush-light in the darkness. Boston was indeed 


proud of him, and gave him generous orders ; 


THE RESULT. 185 


but the melody of artistic inspiration had not yet 
thrilled through the air of the Puritan common- 
wealth, and Allston was bereft of adequate in- 
citements. 

And yet, when we consider the lofty genius of 
Allston, his rich transatlantic years, his peace- 
ful and tranquil life, and the enthusiastic appre- 
ciation with which America received him, it is 
impossible to avoid a feeling that the master did 
not attain the best possible results. If he had 
devoted to his profession all the time which was 
wasted on dilettant diversions, and had avoided 
that colossal rock of offence, the ‘ Belshazzar’s 
Feast,’ he might have gathered about him the 
flower of American youth, and founded a new 
and noble school of Western art, prolific in il- 
lustrious works, and adding a Florentine or a 
Venetian elegance to the martial glories of the 
Republic. Herein he failed, through lack of 
victory-compelling effort, and left but as many 
pictures as could fill a large drawing-room ; while 
American art still remains without a head, and 


becomes an appanage of Paris. 





ALLSTON’S PAINTINGS. 187 


A LIST OF THE CHIEF PAINTINGS OF WASH- 
INGTON ALLSTON, WITH THE NAMES OF 
THEIR PRESENT OWNERS. 


** The names of the owners are tn italics. 


*,* Some of the pictures herein noted are unfinished ; and some 
are highly finished studies. 


UNITED STATES. 

Boston. — Museum of Fine Arts, —Portrait of Mr. Har- 
ris; Elijah in the Desert, 1817; Portrait of Allston, 1805 ; 
Pilot-boat and Storm; copy of Paul Veronese’s ‘ Marriage 
at Cana,’ 1803 ; Landscape ; The Prophetess ; Una; Dido; 
Study of Lorenzo and Jessica; Female Head; The Trou- 
badour; The Death of King John; Cupid; Sketch of Bel- 
shazzar’s Feast; Sketch of Christ Healing the Sick. (Sev- 
eral of these are unfinished, and pertain to the Dana family. 
The new wing of the Museum, erected in 1878, contains the 
so-called Allston Room, devoted to these pictures, and to 
others by the same artist, loaned by their owners and by 
the Athenzum.) Soston Atheneum, — Belshazzar’s Feast ; 
Landscape ; Isaac of York ; Polish Jew; The Student; The 
Opening of the Casket, 1802 ; Portrait of Benjamin West, 
1814. Mrs. George M. Barnard, Fr.,— Landscape. Nathan 
Appleton, — Rosalie. Mrs. George Ticknor, — The Valen- 
tine. J/rs. Stephen H. Bullard, — Beatrice. Richard Sul- 
livan,— A Lady. Miss E. Fackson, — Lorenzo and Jes- 
sica. William Gray,— The Sisters. Yohn A. Lowell, — 
Amy Robsart. Dr. Thomas Dwight,—A Polish Jew. 
H. W. Foote,—Italian Landscape. Miss Pratt, — Land- 


188 ALLISTON. 


scape. Mrs. Fohn Codman,— Pilot-boat in a Storm. 
frederick R. Sears, —'Tuscan Girl; Miriam. Js. George 
k. Baldwin, — Polyphemus. Richard H. Dana, Fr..— 
Ideal female figure. Richard H. Dana, — Sketch for Bel- 
shazzar’s Feast, 1817; Sketch for Christ Healing the Sick, 
1817; Portrait of S. T. Coleridge (unfinished), 1805; Por- 
trait of Allston (unfinished), 1805 ; Landscape ; Head of 
Jeremiah; Titania’s Court. Mrs. S. Hooper, — The Even- 
ing Hymn; Swiss Landscape. J/rs. Paine, —The Young 
Troubadour. Dr. Bigelow,— Landscape. Mrs. Benjamin 
Greene, — Head of a Jew. Rev. F FH. W. Ware, —A 
Child’s Portrait. W 4. Gardiner, — The Witch of Endor. 

MILton. —rs. MW. £. Eustis, — Mrs. Allston ; William 
Ellery Channing. DORCHESTER. — 4/7s. Robert C. Hooper, 
— Italian Shepherd Boy. BROOKLINE. — /enatius Sargent, 
— Poor Author and Rich Publisher. J/7s. W. C. Cabot, — 
Landscape. Mrs. F E. Cabot,— Roman Lady. Ws. 
Sudge Wells (Longwood), — The Indian Summer. Fames 
M. Codman, — Landscape. CAMBRIDGE. — Prof. C. £. 
Norton, = David Playing the Harp before Saul, 1805 ; The 
Romans and the Serpent of Epidaurus, 1805. M/rs. Gurney, 
— The Mother and Child, 1814. Alston Heirs, — Jason 
(an immense unfinished work). MEDFoRD.— £. Z. Has- 
tings, — Una (unfinished). WORCESTER. — Massachusetts 
Insane Asylum, — The Angel Delivering St. Peter from 
Prison, 1812. 

New Haven. — Vale College Art-Gallery, — Jeremiah. 
PROVIDENCE. — W. F. Channing, — Portrait of Francis 
Channing. NeEwport.— Redwood Library, — Portrait of 


ALLSTON’S PAINTINGS. 189 


Robert Rogers. WASHINGTON, D.C. — George Bancroft, 
— Head of St. Peter. PHILADELPHIA, Pa. — Academy of 
Fine Arts, — The Dead Man Revived by Elisha’s Bones. 
Mrs. General Barstow, — Bandits (Donna Mencia?). NEw 
York City. — George Sherman,— A Landscape. William 
F. Hagg,— Moonlight Landscape. FISHKILL-ON-HuD- 
son. — Wrs. Headley, — Portrait of Mrs. William Chan- 
ning. SCHENECTADY. — Rev. Dr. Robert Lowell, — Land- 
scape. CHARLESTON, S. C. — Misses Allston, — A Land- 
scape; Portrait of Allston’s Mother. 


ENGLAND. | 

LONDON. — British National Portrait Gallery, — Portrait 

of Mr. S T. Coleridge. British Museum, — Several 

sketches. Stafford House, — The Angel Uriel Standing in 

the Sun. PETWORTH.— Jacob’s Dream; Contemplation ; 

The Repose in Egypt ; two cabinet pictures. CAMBRIDGE, 
— Fesus College, — Portrait of Coleridge. 


MISSING. 

Line pictures painted before going abroad. —Portrait of 
Mr. King; Cardinal Bentivoglio (copy) ; young Mr. Wa- 
terhouse; W. E. Channing; three other Channing por- 
traits ; Head of Judas Iscariot; St. Peter. 

Twenty-six pictures painted in Europe.— French Sol- 
dier; Rocky Coast; Landscape with Horsemen; The 
Poet’s Ordinary ; Landscape ; Cupid and Psyche; Diana; 
Dr. King; Robert Southey ; three ideal pictures at Bristol ; 
Mrs. King; Rebecca at the Well; Morning in Italy ; 
Donna Mencia; Clytie; Hermia and Helena; Falstaff; 
Samuel Williams ; Mediterranean Coast. 


Igo ALLSTON. 


Pictures painted after 1818. — Florimel; The Massacre 
of the Innocents ; Gabriel Setting the Guard of the Heav- 
enly Host; The Spanish Girl; Edwin; Falstaff. 

Several others have been destroyed by fire, and others 


disappeared during the great Civil War. 


INDEX. 





Abernethy, 83. 

Albro’s Eulogy, 154. 

Allston Family, The, 7, 97. 

Allston quoted, 11, 16, 19, 28, 31, 
35» 36, 37; 39) 41, 42, 45, 48, 54, 58, 
62, 69, 70, 74, 90, 92, 95, 96, 102, 
FIG, £34, 117; 119, 120, 521, 122, 
I24, 13%,;' 137, 141, 149, 151, 155, 
159, 161, 166-70, 177, 180, 182. 

American Scenery, 115. 

American Titian, The, 50, 72. 

Amy Robsart, 113- 

Angel Delivering St. Peter, The, 
61. 

Angel Uriel, The, 81. 

Angelo, Michael, 42, 46. 

Antislavery, 96. 

Artistic Raptures, 37, 41. 

Authorship, 156. 


Banditti, 29. 

Beatrice, 111. 

Beaumont, Sir George, 6r. 
Belshazzar’s Feast, 119, 146, 83. 
Bentivoglio’s Portrait, 19. 
Boston Harbor, g2. 

Boston in 1818, 93. 

Boston Studios, 54, 93. 


Caffé Greco, 43. 

Cambridgeport, 131. 

Carolina, Parting from, 27. 

ae Dr. W. E., 18, 23, 52, 
76, 98. 

Chantry, 96. 

Charleston, 25. 

Childhood, 11. 

Churchman, Allston a, 78, 134. 

Clarke, Miss S., 141, 138, 175. 

Classmates, 24. 


Coleridge, S. T., 49, 62, 66, 73, 75, 
78, 86, 98. 

College-life, 1¢. 

Collins, William, 60, 80, 95, 101, 
163, 172. 

Conversation, 170. 

Crawford, the Sculptor, 140. 


Dana, Chief Justice, 24, 108. 
Dana, Richard H., 18, 149. 
Dancing, 174. 

Dead Man Revived, The, 69. 
Death of Allston, 152. 

Death of Mrs. Allston, 76. 
Death of King Fohn, 113 
Dear Old England, go. 
Decline, 149. 

Designs Engraved, 117. 

De Veaux, ror. 

Dickens, Charles, 146. 


Early Drawings, 16. 
Elijah in the Desert, 105. 
Evening Hymn, The, 113. 
Exhibition of 1839, 142. 


Fascination, 44. 

Felton, Professor, 147, 165. 
Flagg, G. W., 102. 

Flagg, J. B., 104. 
Flaxman, 83. 

Florence, 40. 

Florimel, 111. 

Fraser, Charles, 25, 115. 
Fuller, Margaret, 141, 143- 
Fuseli, Henry, 32, 34. 


Ghost-stories, 75, 79+ 
Government Commissions, 139. 
Grave of Allston, The, 155. 


192 


Greenough, Horatio, 99, 140, 146. 
Grief, 77. 


Harding, Chester, 94, 123, 140, 144. 
Harvard in 1796, 22. 

Haydon, Benjamin R., 62. 

Healy, G. P. A., 140. 

Hogarthean Humor, 36. 
Homesickness, 92. 

Humboldts, The, 43. 


Industry, 180. 

Innocence, 79, 81. 

Irving, Washington, 44, 53, 79, 81, 
88, 102. 

Ishes, ‘The, 144. 

Italian Landscape, 115. 

Italy’s Influence, 38, 135. 

Facob’s Dream, 84, 88. 

Jameson, Mrs., 118, 137. 

Feremiah, 107. 


Lamb, Charles, &6. 

Lawrence, Sir Thomas, gr. 
Lectures on Art, 165. 

Leslie, Charles R., 56-7, 59. 
Liverpool, 55. 

London, 33, 55- 

Longfellow, Henry W., 75, 145-7: 
Lorenzo and Fessi a, 114. 
Lowell’s Pen-sketch, 131. 


Madonna, A Modern, 70. 

Malbone, 16, 20, 25, 31. 

Marion’s Cavalry, 9. 

Marriage, 52, 108. 

Martin, John, 71, 122. 

Miriam, 112. 

Mistake, The Great, 54, 88, 184. 

Modelling, 49, 72- 

Monaldi, 163. 

Morning Years, 28. 

Morse, Professor S. F. B., 53, 63, 
77> 97) 138, 139, 153+ 


Napoleon’s Trophies, 36. 
Newport, 13- 

Nobility, The British, 82. 
Northcote, the Painter, 35. 


Paint-King, The, 161. 

Paris, Visits to, 36, 80. 

Payne, John Howard, 63, 77, 173- 

Percival, James Gates, 100. 

Personal Appearance, 45, 131) 147, 
148, 172. 


INDEX. 


Petworth, 85. 

Physical Troubles, 65, 87. 

Poetry, 25,. 52, 68, 75, 210; 244, 
156. 

Portrait, 51, 

Prescott, William H., 119, 145. 


Raphael, 41. 

Religion, 134, 152. 

Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 32, 35. 
Robinson, H. Crabbe, 86. 
Roman Lady, 113. 

Rome, 4o. 

Rosalie, 110. 

Royal Academy, The, 31, 35, 95+ 


Sickness in England, 66. 

Sisters, The, 114. 

Southey, 67, 68, 74, 163. 

Spalatro’s Vision, 116, 104. 

Spanish Girl, The, 112 

Staigg, Richard M., 105. 

Stuart, Gilbert, 98, 121. 

Studios, 93, 132- 

Sully, Thomas, 98, ror, 121. 

Sumner, Charles, 38, 75, 114, 122, 
145, 146, 155, 173- 

Swzss Landscape, 115. 

Switzerland, 39. 

Sylphs of the Seasons, 68, 157. 


Thorwaldsen, 43. 

Ticknor, George, 140, 145. 
Titianesque Color, 50. 
Trumbull, John, 60. 
Tuckerman, H T., 142, 181. 
Turner, J. M. W., 39, 85. 
Tuscan Girl, The, 114. 
Two Painters, ‘The, 159. 


Valentine, The, 109. 
Vanderlyn, 36, 40 

Venetian Coloring, 37, 50, 57. 
Veronese, Paul, 37, 57. 


Waccamaw, 7, 9, 26. 

Waterhouse. Dr., 23. 

Waterston, Rev. Dr., 22, 146, 148. 
Weir, of West Point, 50, 148. 
West, Benjamin, 31, 33, 54, 56 655 


7%: 

Willis, N, P., 140. 

Wordsworth, William, 62, 73, 140, 
145, 163. 








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